By Chris Addington, Architect
FARA/AIA/NCARB
The Addington Partnership, Bakersfield, CA

The profession of architecture of the 21st century will be much more complex and different than the past decade. We, as professionals, have to pass the body of knowledge that we have developed in our practice to the next generation of architects. Only by passing on the knowledge we have learned and developed can the profession survive the challenges of the future facing the next generation of architects. There are many pitfalls in the profession of architecture. This article will only touch on a few of the pitfalls that we want to share with you.

Professional Fees

We have been trained by our professional associations that we cannot discuss fees with other professionals that we charge our clients during the proposal stages for professional services. If we do, so we could potentially expose ourselves to a charge of collusion. (There are circumstances when we can discuss fees and fee development with fellow professionals, which will be the topic of a future article). Since you should not discuss project specific fees with fellow professionals during the proposal stage, take the time to understand precisely what the client intends to do and do a thorough proposal incorporating precisely the client's intention. Remember that projects usually get more complicated and architects tend to simplify their task and underestimate the effort required to facilitate the project. Many young firms feel that they have to work for substandard fees to get a project. This is the dangerous approach. You must be paid a fair fee for the

"Remember that projects usually get more complicated and architect's tend to simplify their task and underestimate the effort required to facilitate the project."

amount of work that you must do for a project. You must analyze the effort involved--liability incurred by the tasks, understand the expendables to be used, and risks involved. Many architects today are put into a position of bidding for services. The client is looking for the lowest cost and seldom selects an architect for quality of service; otherwise, why is he bidding for our service? If you are put into this the situation, make sure your proposal is detailed precisely as to what you are going to do for your proposed fee. I suggest that you try to standardize your proposals and, wherever possible, use your form.

Payment of Fees

Now you have the project and have dedicated your firm's resources to facilitate the project. Your client has not paid you. Assuming you have billed him timely and correctly, what do you do? Most architects do nothing. Place a call to your client and ask him directly. Do not be afraid to call your client. Many times we find out the invoice was lost in transit, incorrectly invoiced, or still on someone's desk that is on vacation. If he gets offended, he probably was not going to pay you anyway and what do you have to lose? Most legitimate clients expect to pay the professional as agreed in your proposal. Hopefully you have indicated a payment schedule in your proposal. Our firm invoices monthly and we condition our clients to pay us on a monthly basis. If a client gets behind, we discuss this with them and if they cannot come to terms we stop work. It is better to not get paid on a piece of work for a project rather than not get paid the whole fee? Remember you have to get paid to make a profit and if you cannot make a profit you cannot survive to do that next great design.

Product Quality

The professional services we provide for our client can be considered a product in the sense of quality of product. We must provide a service meeting the standard of care expected by our profession. This standard changes geographically throughout the United States. The product quality cannot be comprised. Even if your fee is inadequate to perform the service to the standard of care, it is your responsibility to follow through with the service. We often see firms over spend in Design and Production Drawing phases and try to make it up in the Contract Administration phase. The danger is this. If you are not out in the field seeing how your project is being implemented, changes may be being made that could affect your liability, or worse yet have impact on life and safety of the end users. Check your work at every phase! What can happen is, if you have staff doing a project with oversight, work can be done not per your or your client's expectations. Take the time catch any potential problem before too much time has been expended going the wrong direction. Look at everything that goes to your client before it gets sent out.

Chasing Problems

Every project has problems. These problems are solved either during the design, working drawings, bidding or construction phases. The sooner you solve the problems, the less effort you will spend moving laterally. A good thorough design always makes working drawings go easier. The same can be said for good quality working drawings, which always makes the construction phase go easier. I see many architects have a field problem and wait weeks to address the problem. In the meantime, the contractor is accruing damages, the client is getting impatient and the absent architect usually gets blamed. I suggest when you discover a problem, attack it. Document every call and field visit to make sure it was clear you made a reasonable effort to solve the problem. Even if you are at fault, get involved early. It always costs less to solve a problem before it gets out of hand. Our firm visits construction sites frequently to stay ahead of problems. This allows us to discover problems before they become financial disasters. We cannot visit the site daily so we make calls to the site between visits often to try to discover situations that need our attention. Many times a problem can be solved with teamwork between the architect, client and contractor. Many clients, especially experienced clients, understand that there will be problems and set aside a fund for these. Make sure your client understands that there will be problems and you will be there to help solve them. The worst thing that can happen is if the client does not communicate the problems to you and at project completion asks for payment for all the items discovered. Again, I tell you the absent architect usually gets crucified.