Like, medicine and law, an architect’s work is known as a “practice.” This is because we never know with 100% certainty if we are right when we suggest something. We have a good sense that we should be correct based on previous experience in similar situations, but every situation is different, and it is our job as the experts to apply our experience to each unique situation to protect lives and the most valuable asset that people typically own: their home and the people in it.
This is a major responsibility. The term “EXPERience” looks a lot like “EXPERt.” By gaining experience through practice, we become an expert in our craft. By getting more practice than another architect, an architect has an opportunity to become more of an expert than the others. To date, I have worked in the construction field for 23 years and have practiced my craft on over 500 projects and counting. This is very prolific by comparison. For context, an average American lives in 11 homes in a lifetime, and most residential builders work on less than 4 homes per year. Architects commonly work on 3 or 4 projects at a time. Our practice has around 100 current projects, and I gain experience by managing all of them. Being intimately involved on the design of hundreds of homes has given me the practice to know what to expect in a myriad of situations where others just don’t have the life experience to know and anticipate what I can.
Many people have jobs where they repeat the same process over and over, and they perfect their job to a point where it operates mostly on autopilot. This is not possible for architects. Sure, we do have protocols we put in place to streamline our efforts to save time, but the same process simply cannot apply to every unique situation. We must pull from our repertoire of experience to customize a process for each situation. There are so many factors that can affect the process of designing a house: a different building department, a different building department staffer, a different builder, a different client personality, a different climate, a different location, a different set of materials, a different wind or earthquake exposure, a different structural engineer, a different building code, a different budget, a different timeline, a different aesthetic, a different political climate, a different culture, etc. There are SO MANY things that alter the way we approach our work to complete it successfully.
Completing our job successfully does NOT mean that each step of the process is successful. Reminder: this is a “practice.” When you practice, you do it imperfect before you finally get it perfect. When you practice something a lot, you get pretty good at it with flaws here and there, but you eventually overcome them and get better. As we practice architecture, we do small “experiments,” then we test them, and we improve upon whatever results we find.
For example, if we want to maximize the percentage of a property we are allowed to cover according to land use code limits, we design something that seems to work. Then we calculate the result and adjust as needed. An experienced architect won’t be egregiously incorrect, and only minor adjustments will be needed. In this example, we are either a little over or a little under. Our previous practice enables us to use our intuition to get somewhere close to ensure the size of the building properly fits within the limitations of the property.
Similarly with budgets, we need to design something we THINK will be on budget, and test our hypothesis by asking builders for bids. With enough practice, we get close, and we make adjustments according to the results of the bid to keep things on budget.
With a complicated design feature, we base the design solution from something similar we have done in the past. Then, we test our result by running it by engineers, pricing the materials, and talking with experts on the materials that we THINK will work. We learn from our practice, and we adjust accordingly. The cost of hiring an architect has these failures and successes (and past experiences) built into the price. Clients are paying for the architect’s time AND their ENTIRE history of experience, education, successes, and failures.
As you see, the architecture profession is very much a “practice” to test the architect’s ideas to adapt them as best as possible for their clients. It all comes down to the trust of a client to accept the experience of the architect, so the architect may make educated decisions and let them play out through the design process. Remember, nothing is final until it is built, so any decisions made are just a part of the vetting process to tailor a concept into reality.
If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help