Questions to Ask Your Architect
Questions for a first or second meeting with an architect about a house, an extension or a renovation: how the fee is structured and what sits outside it, who does the drawing, how the construction budget gets tested, permits, contractor selection, site visits during the build, and who owns the drawings if things end early.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Have you done a project like this one, at roughly this budget, in this area?
Why ask it
The budget band matters as much as the building type. An office used to twice your budget will detail your project the same way it details those, and local experience also means existing relationships at the building department.
Who would actually be working on my project day to day, and how many other jobs are they carrying?
Why ask it
The person who wins the work is often not the person drawing it. Ask who attends site visits and who answers the phone in month seven, because that is the relationship you are buying.
Can I see a project you finished three or four years ago, and speak to those owners?
Why ask it
Recent photographs are taken before anyone has lived in the building. At four years the details have been tested, and the owners will tell you what they would change and how the architect behaved when something went wrong.
Can you tell me about a project that went over budget or ran late, and what happened?
Why ask it
Every practice has one, and an architect who says otherwise is either very new or not being straight. What matters is whether the client was warned early and who absorbed the cost of fixing it.
What do you need from me before design can start: a survey, soil tests, drawings of what's already there?
Why ask it
Surveys, soil investigations, asbestos checks and measured drawings of an existing building are usually the owner's cost and the first source of delay. Getting the list early lets you order them while contracts are still being signed.
How do you charge: a percentage of construction cost, hourly, or a fixed fee by phase?
Why ask it
A percentage fee rises with construction cost, which puts you on opposite sides of any conversation about trimming scope. Hourly needs a cap, fixed fee needs an exact scope. Whichever it is, ask what happens if the project grows.
What isn't in your fee, and which consultants would I be hiring separately?
Why ask it
Structural, mechanical and civil engineers, landscape design, renderings, surveys and permit fees commonly sit outside the architect's number. Without the excluded list in writing, two proposals cannot be compared at all.
What triggers each payment, and what would I owe if we stopped after a phase?
Why ask it
Payments tied to completed phases rather than to the calendar keep incentives aligned. Plenty of projects pause for a year after early design, so it is worth knowing what you would have paid for and what drawings you would hold.
How is the construction budget set at this early stage, and who prices the drawings?
Why ask it
Early numbers come from the architect's own experience, a cost consultant, or a contractor doing a favour. Ask which, because a figure produced by nobody in particular is the usual reason a scheme has to be redesigned later.
What happens if the bids come back over budget?
Why ask it
This decides who pays for the redesign. Some offices revise within the original fee when their own estimate was optimistic; others bill every change as additional service. Agree it before bids arrive, not after.
How many rounds of revisions are included before changes become extra?
Why ask it
Changes are the most common route to a fee dispute. A clear answer names how many options you get at each stage and defines the difference between refining a scheme and starting a new direction.
Who prepares the permit submissions, and how long does approval usually take around here?
Why ask it
Approval timelines are local knowledge, and someone who has submitted recently in your jurisdiction will give a range rather than a shrug. Getting this wrong moves your construction start by a season.
Have you dealt with our building department before, and what tends to snag with them?
Why ask it
Plan reviewers have standing objections, preferred detail formats and predictable requests. An architect who can forecast the comments you will get is often worth more than the fee difference between two offices.
Do you help us find and compare contractors, or is that on us?
Why ask it
Contractor selection is where the money is won or lost. Ask whether they prepare a bid package, compare bids line by line and check references, or whether they hand over drawings and step back.
During construction, how often would you be on site, and what are you checking when you're there?
Why ask it
This is the service owners most often cut and most often miss. Ask whether visits are included, extra, or hourly, and who writes up what was seen, because an unrecorded visit settles no argument later.
If something unexpected turns up behind a wall, how does that get decided and priced?
Why ask it
In renovation work this is a certainty rather than a risk. You want to know who can authorise a change, what the paper trail looks like, and whether the architect reviews the contractor's price before you approve it.
Who owns the drawings, and could I take them to another architect if we parted ways?
Why ask it
Architects generally retain copyright and license the drawings for one build on one site. That governs whether you could reuse the design, and it governs your position if the relationship ends mid-project, so read the clause before signing.
Are you licensed in this jurisdiction, and what insurance do you carry?
Why ask it
Registration is checkable through the licensing board rather than taken on trust. Professional liability cover is what stands behind a design error, so ask whether the policy is current and how the limit compares with your construction cost.
What part of what I've described would you push back on?
Why ask it
This separates a professional from an order-taker. An honest answer names the part of your brief that fights the site, the budget or the code, and hearing it in a first meeting costs you nothing.
What happens after we move in, if something doesn't work the way it was drawn?
Why ask it
Snag lists, warranty claims and systems that underperform all surface in the first year. Ask what involvement continues after handover, whether it is included in the fee, and who chases the contractor.
What kind of work do you take on, and what do you turn down?
Why ask it
The refusals are the informative half. A practice that has never declined a project either needs the work or has no defined focus, and either way your project will be shaped by whatever they are learning on it.
How do you find out how someone actually lives or works before you design for them?
Why ask it
The strongest answers describe visiting your current space, asking about routines, or watching how you use rooms rather than handing over a questionnaire. Practices that skip this step design their own preferences and call it a brief.
How do you present ideas to clients, and why that way?
Why ask it
Renderings sell and hide, physical models explain volume, plans require training to read. A practice that thinks about how a non-architect understands space will say so. One that only produces polished images may be managing your reaction rather than informing it.
How does your process work, and at what points do I have to make decisions?
Why ask it
You are asking where the decision gates are, because a change is cheap at concept and expensive after engineering. A good answer tells you what you will be shown at each stage and what is effectively locked afterwards.
How long until I have drawings a contractor can price?
Why ask it
More useful than asking about the total timeline, since permit and construction schedules are largely outside their control. If the answer is months longer than you assumed, you find out now rather than after signing.
How do you record what we agree, so that we both remember it in six months?
Why ask it
Meeting notes issued after every discussion sound bureaucratic and prevent most disputes. If nobody writes decisions down, the version that survives is whoever remembers more confidently, and that is usually not the client.
When a client's taste and your judgment pull in different directions, what happens?
Why ask it
Both extremes are a problem: an architect who always concedes gives you an expensive draughtsman, and one who never concedes gives you their building. Ask for an actual instance and listen for whether they say what they gave up.
On a site like mine, how would you think about daylight and orientation?
Why ask it
Ask it on site if you can. You are listening for whether they talk about your specific aspect, trees, and neighbours rather than principles. This is also the fastest way to find out if they have visited properly.
What experience do you have with the level of energy performance I am asking for?
Why ask it
Airtightness, heat pumps, and high insulation levels change details, not just specifications, and inexperience shows up as condensation or a system that never performs as modelled. Ask for a project where the performance was actually measured afterwards.
Who checks your drawings before they leave the office?
Why ask it
Drawing errors become change orders that you pay for. Look for a named second person or a defined review step. Sole practitioners should be able to say who reviews their work externally, and the honest ones will.
How do you work with engineers, and who catches it when their work conflicts with yours?
Why ask it
Most construction surprises come from the gaps between disciplines: a beam through a window, a duct below a ceiling. The answer tells you whether coordination is somebody's job or something everyone assumes is happening.
When cost has to come out, what do you cut first?
Why ask it
Reveals their priorities more clearly than any question about design philosophy. Some protect volume and light and give up finishes, others protect the kitchen. Their instinct should match yours, because this conversation will happen for real.
What is the most common reason projects like mine go wrong?
Why ask it
The best answers name budget set before scope, an owner who cannot decide, or a contractor chosen on price alone. An architect who blames only clients or only builders is describing a pattern you may be about to join.
What do your former clients complain about?
Why ask it
A question that rewards honesty and exposes evasion. Answers like slow email or too many options are credible and manageable. Claiming there are no complaints after twenty years of practice is not.
What have you learned from going back to buildings you finished years ago?
Why ask it
Practices that revisit their work talk about maintenance, how the users adapted the space, and details they no longer use. Practices that never go back learn nothing after handover, and it shows in repeated mistakes.
From your side, what makes a client difficult to work with?
Why ask it
You learn their expectations of you, which is fair to hear before committing. It also surfaces mismatches early: an architect who finds involved clients tiring is the wrong choice if you want to be in every decision.
Hiring an Architect and Keeping the Project Honest
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the first meeting
Bring a number and a range, not a wish
Say what you can spend and what you could stretch to, including a contingency you have set aside. Architects design to the number they are given, and a vague budget produces a scheme that has to be cut later at your expense.
Separate needs from preferences in writing
One page: what the building has to do, what you would like, and what you are willing to lose. This is the document that settles arguments in month four, and writing it often reveals that two people in the household want different projects.
Collect what exists
Old drawings, survey plats, permit history, photographs of the house before earlier work. Every document you can produce is time nobody has to bill you for, and previous unpermitted work is better discovered now than during plan review.
Comparing proposals
Line up the exclusions, not the totals
Write the two fee proposals side by side and mark every item one includes and the other does not: engineering, renderings, permit runs, site visits, as-built drawings. The cheaper number is often the shorter scope.
Ask each office the same three questions
What happens if bids come in high, how many revisions are included, and how often will you visit site. The differences in those answers predict the experience better than any portfolio.
Call references with specific questions
Ask what changed between the first estimate and the final cost, how the architect handled the worst week, and whether they would use the same office again for a different project. Open-ended praise tells you very little.
Where projects go wrong
Choosing on portfolio photographs alone
Photographs record the best moment of a finished building and nothing about the process, the budget overrun or the contractor's opinion. Two references and one four-year-old project tell you more.
Skipping the construction administration phase
Dropping site visits saves a visible amount and hands the interpretation of the drawings to the contractor. Owners who cut it usually discover the cost in substituted materials and details built the easy way.
Deciding late
Tile, fixtures and appliance selections made after framing starts are the standard cause of change orders. Ask for a decision schedule with dates and treat those dates as real.
Communicating through two channels
Instructions given directly to a contractor on site, outside the architect's knowledge, break both the drawings and the accounting. Agree one route for every instruction and keep it in writing.
Before you sign the agreement
What to confirm in writing
- 1Scope by phase, with the deliverable at the end of each one.
- 2Fee basis, payment triggers, and hourly rates for anything additional.
- 3The list of consultants and reports you are paying for separately.
- 4Number of revisions included, and what counts as a new direction.
- 5Site visit frequency during construction and who reports on them.
- 6Ownership and licence terms for the drawings, including termination.
- 7Insurance certificate and current registration number.