Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Architects Gone Mad

Over the last couple of months I've been trying to find an architect to assist me with the design and engineering of this project. My initial volley involved contacting four small firms I thought would be a good match for the work. I found the experience both frustrating and disturbing.

Going into this I knew architects now take a far more active role in the design and construction of buildings, to the point of serving as project managers, mostly because the codes now make home design needlessly complex, but also because the quality of construction, both in terms of labor and materials, has declined precipitously over the last 30 years. In short, general contractors need to be watched like a hawk during the construction process because many if not most GCs can't read a plan to save their own lives, or even if the supervisors do, the laborers don't, or the supervisors fail to communicate the design to the laborers and they then proceed to fuck it up.

So now architects like to charge for site visits and discussions they have with the GC, or what is called "construction administration". And I'm generally okay with that, provided it is considered a separate fixed price line item on the quote and it's reasonable given the size of the project. In fact, I see value in this type of work in my case as I'm not presently living near the project and need to pay for someone to be my advocate on site.

What I'm not okay with is the trend among modern architectural firms to charge a fee that is a percentage of the budget or build cost of the home. This rubs me the wrong way because it's effectively an open-ended tax on my build rather than a reflection of the firm's true costs of labor and because it necessitates providing a full accounting to these firms for all costs, something I fundamentally believe they have no business knowing. Whether I select a generic $1000 GE range for my kitchen or a $15000 Wolf makes absolutely no difference to the architect. They place a 3D model of the device into the BIM software (Revit, or the like), make sure everything fits, and then they're done. Yes, I'm oversimplifying here and ignoring things like make up air systems and the like, but you get the idea. Selecting a more expensive component does not justify an architect charging me more. Needless to say, I elected to diplomatically discontinue negotiations with the two firms that responded with this type of quote.

I wound up talking to one of the four firms in depth about the project. We exchanged several emails over a period of a month or so. The owner of the firm seemed to be reasonable and responsive, as well as interested in the architecturally significant aspects of the project. So much so that I fully expected to write a contract with the owner of this firm -- that is until his final quote arrived.

During this time, coincidentally, my brother was working with an architect in New Jersey for a home about the size of mine, with the major exception that he was building with conventional construction methods and I was planning a post-and-beam structure, at least for the core of the home. When I told him what I was quoted he couldn't believe it. And this is coming from someone who does this stuff every day for a living. While I might be forgiven for not knowing the current expectations of design firms as I haven't been on a construction site in over 20 years, my brother has run a successful contracting business during that time and deals with these types of projects every day. All this to say, if he thinks the quotes are ludicrous, they are.

To build my brother's home in New Jersey (one of the most expensive areas in the country) he was quoted $12K for stamped construction documents. The Tennessee architect quoted me $22K for the same work on my home but he told me that engineering of the post-and-beam frame would be done by a third party, and any other structural and mechanical engineering services (for HVAC and the like) as well as any interior design services I expected would also be billed separately. On top of that he quoted $10K for construction administration services, or a total of $32K. Reading the quote in detail I realized almost immediately he had omitted the Utility Building from his quote, so that would cost yet more.

Realistically, I was staring a $60K bill in the face and I hadn't even submitted any of this to the town for approval or any GCs to see if I could actually afford to build what I designed. I elected to bring my brother's recent quote to bear and suggested that while I thought the price was high I was willing to pay it if he included the comparatively simple utility building (which was nothing more than a 40x40 box at this point) but he declined to modify his quote and that is where the relationship ended. In his closing email he said that he thought my expectations of the costs for his professional services on my "high end" home were unrealistic. He also sent me a link to what turned out to be a much larger firm in the area, no doubt to rub it in my nose and point out what I already knew -- that the larger firm would fleece me to an even greater degree. Needless to say I didn't bother talking to them. Instead, I decided to regroup and rethink what I wanted to build and how I would build it.

I immediately decided to grow the utility building to include a small apartment and thus transform it into a "barndominium" and build the home and barn later. I figured this would accomplish several things.

1. It would take less time and money to build than the original 40x40 utility building and post-and-beam home together, so I should able to move my residence to Tennessee earlier and have a smaller mortgage out of the gate.

2. Once I move in I'll have the time necessary to design the home and barn myself, retain ownership of the designs, and monitor the construction of those buildings with my own eyes, avoiding many potential construction pitfalls in the process.

3. Once the home is built and I move out of the barndominium it could serve as an isolated guest quarters or possibly produce some rental income during retirement that would easily pay for the taxes on the property.

At this point you're probably questioning my sanity. Why would I want to design the home and barn myself and take on a project of that complexity and scope? There are many reasons, but the pivotal thought stems from discussions I had with two firms including the firm I mentioned above. Neither would allow me to own the design of my home or provide any CAD files at any phase in the work, even if I offered to pay for this data.

According to the architects this policy exists because they do a lot of design work to develop pre-engineered structures or CAD models that they apply to new designs and that these pre-engineered objects are their intellectual property. They are unwilling to release them because, as one firm put it, "this data is our competitive advantage", as if to imply they were designing top secret missile systems or the latest iPhone rather than a home that conforms to public building codes.

I view this for what it is: anti-competitive behavior with the sole aim to lock the client's design to that firm. Should the client wish to leave the firm due to personal or professional conflicts, overcharging, under-performance, or similar business problems, the client is SOL. The firm owns the design, and any money the client may have paid up to that point is unceremoniously flushed down the crapper unless they want to waste more money on litigation that will probably not make financial sense. If a client has to enlist the help of another firm they have to start from scratch and, of course, pay for the privilege. Now, if we were talking about a reasonable design fee like $10K or $15K I wouldn't care as much as that wouldn't positively cripple my budget if I had to start over. But the thought of spending $50K or more and doing that sickens me.

The reality is I will have to accept these less than favorable terms for the barndominium but should I design the home and barn myself I will reduce the long term liability and costs associated with building those structures. In fact, based on the quotes I've seen so far I'll likely save at least $75K in design fees, which will more than pay for my copy of Revit, copies of all the codebooks, my time to work on the project, and the PEs I'll hire to stamp my plans. And, as is the case with all the other complicated projects I've taken on over the years like my recent BMW engine rebuild, at the end of the day I'll gain the pride and satisfaction that comes from the knowledge I'll acquire throughout the process.

I'm now hoping when I submit this conventionally framed project to an architect I'll get a more reasonable quote. I'm not necessarily expecting it to cost less than the one firm quoted but it won't have the added costs of the post and beam structure as well as many of the complexities in mechanical systems I expected to design into the home. The end result should be a building that gets built faster for less money and gets me one step closer to my goal of owning my own home again and having the space and time to work on the personal and business projects that I enjoy.