I Smell Musk / March 1, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

Imagine:

How hard would it be to build a car? …How about build a factory that builds cars? How about building a factory with robots that build the cars? And revolutionize how the cars are sold without dealerships. Oh yea, and the cars can drive themselves … without gas … since they have the most efficient batteries and electric engines, ever. And you made those batteries. No, you didn’t buy them somewhere. You bought land and mined for the elements to make your own batteries from scratch that you designed. And develop those batteries with a gigafactory that you also built, so your cars can use them, people can store them on their wall for collecting backup energy at lower electricity pricing during daytime, and you also provide the batteries you make to other companies. And while you’re at it, take over one of the largest solar panel manufacturers for total domination in the electricity sector. And, if that’s not enough, also make a rocket - that goes into space - and comes back again (so you can reuse it). And also shoot thousands of mini satellites into space, so humanity can have better internet. And when you get bored (and tired of traffic), develop your own tunnel machine that makes tunnels many times cheaper and faster than anyone else ever could. And if you get really really bored, then figure out how you can make microchips that enable your brain to communicate digitally.

Could you do all that? Or just one of those things? Or just one part of one of those things? Elon Musk can, and he did. This guy is the modern day Michelangelo. He has revolutionized our world in ways that define how the future will be. He is the most impressive, productive human I have ever learned about. He inspires me to do more and to think differently. I am excited to see what he will do next. He doesn’t need to work. He just does because he is a lifelong learner with the gumption and courage to act on the ideas he has. Can you make similarly powerful innovations in your industry?

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

Clarity on Change Orders, Construction Change Directives, and Claims / February 1, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

Have you ever been cooking something in a recipe only to realize that you don’t have a key ingredient, like eggs, for example? You can either drive to the grocery, ask a neighbor, or give up (or cook a really yucky meal). In any case, you need to “demobilize” the kitchen by turning off the stove, maybe refrigerating some ingredients, and maybe washing out some of the pans and utensils, so you can modify your game plan. This takes extra time, of course.

Construction projects are much the same, but instead of a 20 minute activity like a recipe, they are often a much more robust, choreographed “recipe” illustrated in complicated construction drawings and specifications that often take a year or more to complete. Think about how many times you might “forget the eggs” in the course of a yearlong recipe.

In a construction project, “forgetting the eggs” is synonymous to a client changing their mind on a design feature, a material no longer available for delivery, a subcontractor that shifted the schedule which affects other steps in the process, an unforeseen rodent issue, mold, or rotten structural problem, or simply forgetting to order the specialty nuts and bolts needed. There’s so many integrated parts and pieces that must be coordinated at precise times, that there will be changes in the construction “recipe.” It is inevitable.

When this happens, the project scope is adjusted in the schedule, budget, and/or desired outcome. There are 3 common ways this is formally done in the construction industry: change orders (CO), construction change directives (CCD), and claims. Let’s discuss the differences.

Change Orders:

When additional scope is requested to be added to the original scope of work (usually by the client), the general contractor will create a change order request (COR) that estimates the labor and materials needed to complete the additional work. This can only be done when there is sufficient time to communicate the change, coordinate a detailed design solution with the architect/engineer (and maybe the building department), and to come to an agreement between the client and contractor on the affect it will have on the schedule and budget. The client may approve this change order, and the general contractor will work with the client to add it to the schedule for a pre-agreed price. The general contractor is not required to accept scope changes, so it is best to avoid it whenever possible. A seemingly simple change could have major impacts. For example, if you decide you want to put tile on THIS wall instead of THAT wall before the tile is scheduled to be installed, the builder may need to undo some of the prep work that may be a substrate for the tile that was already done to THIS wall to redo the prep work on THAT wall. That may involve ordering more tile backer board, calling out a drywall crew again, doing some demo, potentially moving electrical or plumbing around, etc. This causes an impact to the schedule and budget even though it may appear you’re just putting the same tile on a different wall.

Construction Change Directive:

From time-to-time, the general contractor may need to complete work beyond the original scope of work that is small in nature and is a necessity for the scope of work to continue in any capacity without a significant delay. This could be due to a material not being available, vandalism on the job site, an inspector’s demand, or a leak encountered inside a wall. This could also be a result of a client requesting a general contractor to make a minor change to the project that generally fits within the current sequence of construction events. With a CCD, the design change is usually minor enough that it does not typically need to be vetted by the architect/engineer - or maybe a quick 2 minute phone call can address any answers needed. Also, the impacts to cost and schedule are generally minor, so the builder can generally proceed with the additional necessary work at the pre-determined labor rates without delaying the project by spending more time bidding this additional work. With a CCD, the builder can promptly communicate the impact of the change to the client without experiencing a delay. In other words, the project can more or less continue as originally planned - but with a slight modification. Due to the nature of the change, the work is required to be done anyway, so any impact to the schedule and budget is really out of everyone’s control. The builder should endeavor to notify the client of any small changes for advance approval wherever possible, but the builder should have the right to make small changes to the scope of work without advance client approval where the design intent will be met, the result will be code compliant, and the work is necessary to be completed to prevent a delay in the scope of work. The builder should document the work related to the CCD for the client’s reference, so it can be totaled outside of the original budget.

Claims:

Similar to a CCD, a claim is a minor change to the agreed scope of work, but due to the nature of the work needing to be done, it is not practical to get the client’s prior approval to proceed. For example, if a pipe connection outside the scope of work is discovered to be the cause of a leak, the builder should proceed with this repair because it must be done. There is no other choice. There’s no option for how it can be done, and there’s no option for what materials can be used. In this case, the builder should just do the minor work and invoice the client separately from the intended work. If the builder did not do this work, the pipe would end up getting buried in the wall, the problem would grow, and it would be much more costly to fix the problem in the future.

In summary, a change order is a planned change with adequate time for consideration of all parties, while a construction change directive and a claim are unplanned changes that must be completed at the time of discovery. A claim is a minor version of a CCD. A CCD involves a minimal level of advanced communication to allow some level of understanding between parties, but a claim is more of an emergency type of work.

A good architect can help to mitigate changes, and more importantly, even prevent changes from occurring in the first place. Architects experienced in construction can foresee problems before they happen, so including the architect during the construction process will commonly save a client more money than they pay them. It is not uncommon to have a meeting where we save our clients $50,000 here and there. That might seem crazy, but we do it all the time.

BIM Bam Bust / January 3, 2022 by S. Joshua Brincko

Have you heard of BIM? Or Revit? BIM means Building Information Modeling. What does Building Information Modeling mean, and why should you care? Read along, and I’ll explain.

A Revit “model” or BIM “model” is a 3D computer generated view of a building that you can walkthrough, orbit around, zoom into, and look inside. Sounds cool, right? If you are working with an architect, you and your builder can see your building in 3D before it gets built. That can be very helpful to communicate the project.

We do 3D computer models on many projects to help the design team, client, and builder understand the project as it develops, but BIM is much more than a 3D model. The “I” in BIM, which stands for “information,” is the major difference between a 3D computer model and a 3D BIM model.

The “information” aspect that is embedded into a 3D BIM model is a collection of parameters that specifies what the different components actually are in the 3D model. In other words, in a non-BIM model, a wall is just a vertical surface with maybe a photograph of a material on it to make it look like wood or something. In a BIM model, that wall is the same thing and so much more.

Not only is it a visible wall in BIM, but there is an actual list of characteristics grouped into it. For example, if you click on that wall’s settings, it may tell you that it is composed of 2x6 studs, R21 batt insulation, 1/2” primed and painted drywall, 15/32” plywood with a weather barrier, furring strips, painted siding, a wood base board, and crown moulding. All of those properties can be defined in BIM model whereas in a regular 3D computer model, that wall doesn’t really know that it’s a wall… it’s just a vertical plane that happens to look like a wall.

In BIM, you can also define additional properties to things like walls. For example, you can tell the software that THIS wall is attached to THAT floor and THAT ceiling, so if you move the ceiling higher, the wall moves up with it since they are attached. This can save time when making modifications to the design of the model. Also, all of these parameters allow you to generate 2D views of the 3D model. For instance, you can orient the view of the BIM model to look down and create a floor plan view or forward to make an elevation view. You can also do this in a non-BIM model, but the software doesn’t understand that you are in a floor plan view specifically. In BIM software like Revit, it is formatted to understand that a floor plan is a view that needs to be “drawn” on a page of a full set of plans, and certain notes, symbols, labels, and graphics can be (somewhat) automatically added to that view to “magically” turn a 3D BIM model of a building into a 2D set of drawings.

This is where the problem exists. This automatic conversion from a 3D model to a set of 2D architectural drawings is a wonderful concept. In practice, it is PAINFUL to say the least.

Let’s face it. Architectural drawings are complicated. Architects go through tons of schooling, interning, and years of professional practice to truly understand HOW to design buildings and more importantly - HOW to communicate them graphically on paper so builders and clients know what it all means.

BIM attempts to circumvent that.

I’m all for shortcuts, but we have all heard quotes like:

“There’s no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

“There’s no shortcuts in the quest for perfection.”

“A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.”

”If you take shortcuts, you get cut short.”

”Shortcuts will get you to the place you don’t want to be much quicker than the place you want to be.”

I can go on. There’s a whole website of them here. In my experience, BIM is designed to be a “shortcut,” and like the sayings go, it’s no shortcut at all. Let me elaborate.

In all of the training and experience an architect gets, we learn how to represent our ideas for complicated buildings on paper. It is very difficult to attempt to take a complex structure and dumb it down onto a drawing that people without the same training can understand. There is so much technical information to convey on plans to expect that a computer will magically do that for you (properly). The end goal of architecture is to create a perfect building, and the main deliverable an architect provides is a set of construction drawings to explain how to build the building (and even these complex drawings are supplemented with countless emails, phone calls, and jobsite meetings to review the plans and work with the builders).

Here’s the exposé I am offering:

The BIM software does a poor job (at best) of representing a building.

The BIM software gets critical parts wrong as it attempts to automate the job of converting a 3D model into a set of 2D construction drawings.

The BIM software gets you 60% of the way there, if you sort of know what you’re doing.

This is the problem. Drafters using BIM software don’t really know what they are doing. They think they do, but that is only because they don’t know any better. They never learned how to actually create the drawings. They either took the shortcut or got shortcutted merely because of their age, time, and place in the profession. You can argue with them, but they don’t hear you because in their mind, “the computer did it, so the drawing is correct.”

How do I know I’m right, and they are wrong?

I have done it both ways. I have used a pencil, autocad, and BIM. I can use them all, so therefore, I can compare them. I did not take the shortcut. I learned, through rigorous experience, how to build a house, how to design one, and how to draw one with a pencil. When it’s you, a pencil, and a blank paper, it’s ALL ON YOU to make it happen. You draw everything that needs done. That exposure gives you the experience needed to understand what the hell you are doing. When you emerge into a profession where some of the work is done for you through automation, you don’t learn, and consequently, you have no fucking clue what you are doing as you try to design and articulate a complicated building on a set of construction drawings. You just don’t. I’ve seen in countless times, in different contexts, with the same consistent errors and oversights.

I’ve seen BIM leave holes in walls, openings in roofs, labels missing, text illegible or even meaningless, omissions too frequent to name, the most basic construction principles butchered beyond belief, magically floating foundations, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc!

So I phrased it as “BIM leaves holes in walls,” but that’s wrong. That’s what “they” say. But BIM didn’t leave a hole in a wall … the ill-trained architect that has no clue what they are doing left a hole in the wall because they are using BIM, they don’t know how to design, build, or draw, and they expect BIM to do it for them. When/if they check their/BIM’s work, they should see there is a hole in the wall. How could you not see a hole in the wall? This is the most basic elementary concept in design, so how could it be missed? Again, it is because the BIM operator doesn’t know what they are doing. They are pushing buttons with no accountability or real knowledge base.

I have a lot of friends who are BIM users. Some are really good. Even then, BIM still produces errors, and those good architects miss the automated errors due to the expectation that it’s supposed to be automated. They don’t (usually) miss holes in walls, but they certainly miss more technical problems that are less obvious.

Like the doctors and attorneys, architects are in a profession where errors CANNOT happen. An error can cause a multi-million dollar lawsuit. An error can cause a multi-million dollar construction delay. An error can cause an incorrect multi-million dollar order of materials. An error can cost a life (or even a building full of them). We don’t have room for errors in our profession. Every error must be caught before it leaves our desk. This requires good systems, software, procedures, protocols, and layers of checking. Although BIM is a great concept, it is a petri dish for errors.

The BIM “shortcut” truly is the “quickest way to get you to a place you don’t want to be.” Actually, it’s not even quick at that either. Using BIM is so incredibly time intensive. As the name suggests, Building Information Modeling,” requires you to make a 3D model of INFORMATION - not just a 3D visual model. To input all of the information of the components of a wall or a door into a BIM model, takes an excruciating amount of time. In the non-BIM way of doing things, two lines is how you draw a wall. Done. Easy. Fast. In BIM, there is a whole spreadsheet of data that you need to input to define what those two lines for a wall mean.

This causes the design process to really shift. Instead of quickly drawing a preliminary design concept in a few hours, BIM requires you to input all this extra info, and a simple task can take days or weeks. This leaves minimal time for making changes to the design drawings since the majority of the design budget gets spent just trying to “draw” the preliminary concept in BIM. Since the BIM model carries so much data, there’s a lot of baggage to input and also the manage when changes need made.

With the non-BIM approach, we can be light and agile. This allows fast results. If we need to move a wall, we move it on the floor plan, section, and interior drawings to make it coordinate throughout. In BIM, you move the wall in one drawing, and it moves “automatically” in the rest of the drawings - but there’s problems. In non-BIM, those problems are still there, but they are easy to manage and see. In BIM, those problems are so buried in the spreadsheets of data that must be input that they are time intensive to change and not apparent to find (it is easy to miss things). Furthermore, as explained earlier, most of the BIM users don’t know what they are doing anyway, so they don’t even know what errors they should be looking for. They just assume everything is fine and dandy. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

If BIM is so problematic, then why do people use it, and why do they even brag about using it?

The principals at design firms are often dinosaurs that don’t understand technology, and they are very interested in the “bottom line” (saving money). 20-something interns fresh out of school come in and tell their bosses that there’s a software thingy that can make the process automated. The boss doesn’t understand but thinks that sounds fantastic. The boss buys the software. The firm starts using the software, and everyone struggles adopting it (like you would expect any new software). The 20-somethings tout that they know how to use it, and the 30 and 40-somethings reluctantly buy into it because their boss demands it. Then the boss hears the 20-somethings saying they know how to use BIM, so the boss directs the 20-somethings to train the 30 and 40-somethings. Once the firm gets entrenched with their projects in the BIM software, the 30 and 40-somethings realize that the 20-somethings can navigate the software, but those newbies have no clue what they are doing in terms of how to design or draw a building. The previous generation of interns knew how to draw stuff, so the boss’s expectation is that the current interns also know how to draw stuff. But they don’t. They can only make a building in BIM with a shitload of errors that they don’t understand (and they will argue that there are not errors). Then the boss (who really doesn’t know what is going on) assumes that the 30 and 40-somethings are just having a hard time adopting to the new software, so the boss fallaciously tells the staff to stick with it and get help from the 20-somethings. A year goes by, and all the projects are over budget with no time left to make changes or finish the design process. So, the boss hires outside consultants to come in and train the staff. These outside consultants are really just non-architecturally trained techies that are employed by the software company. They know everything about the software, but they know nothing about the actual practice of architecture. When you ask them a question, they have no idea about the relevance of it and how it relates to the creation of construction drawings. Those consultants are even worse than the interns. They are useless. Nonetheless, the bosses still brag about this automated magical software they have, but it’s only because they don’t understand enough to know better. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

To really be successful at using BIM, you need to: 1. Already know how to design and draw WITHOUT it. 2. You need to check the work with much more scrutiny than normal, so you can detect all the errors. 3. You need to spend a lot more time in the early phases of design to input all the extra information into the model, and be willing to spend less time on the later phases of design (even though that time is really needed later). 4. You need to be OK with being inefficient even though the software is marketed as an efficiency tool. 5. You need to know when to abandon the software because it may not be appropriate for every project.

Designing Costco’s (which are all fundamentally the same) is a good project type for BIM. Designing custom, unique homes, is not a good project type for BIM since there is no repetition.

At my firm, we use 2D drafting software (CAD) to draw construction drawings. We use 3D modeling software (not BIM - it has no embedded “information”) only to depict the appearance of buildings. We use hand sketching to communicate complicated construction details. We are extraordinarily fast and thorough at these methods, and we can blow any BIM user out of the water. This is because we know WHAT we are doing, and we know HOW to draw it.

Hopefully I haven’t offended everyone in the industry since many people fit into the narrative above. I do hope this sheds some light on the pitfalls to enable everyone out there to up their game, make good choices, and design successful awesome buildings.

Holley / December 1, 2021 by S. Joshua Brincko

Holley Myers. No, not Holly Meyers. Take the first “e” out of Meyers and slip it into the end of Holly and you get Holley Myers:) Glad we got that settled.

There’s thousands of decisions that go into the design of a house. To get each and every one of those decisions made will take another few additional decisions, monitoring, and attention. Holley oversees that. As we work with clients to design their homes, we recommend certain things in a certain order as part of our process. Holley tracks all of that and manages what we need to do next in our process. She’s our guide… sort of like a human map. In fact, she is a self-proclaimed “map nerd,” and one of her favorite work tasks is compiling a bunch of map data for the properties we work on.

As we first start with a new client, Holley is there to set it up. As we go through the steps of designing the project, Holley tracks the time and decisions that get made. As we reach out to builders for bids, Holley tracks their progress and records their numbers. When we go through all the steps of the permit process, Holley checks in on the building dept to get them moving and makes sure we have updated correspondence from the city reviewers at all times. She also helps us to do the bookkeeping, get surveyors going, track the invoicing, comes up with new ideas for efficient processes, and she keeps all of us in line…to the maximum extent possible.

Holley is extremely organized, learns how to quickly do things she has never done before, and she has an intuition to know what happens before it happens. She is truly amazing, and we are honored to have her.

Where did she come from? She’s a Seattle-area native and is my wife’s (Heather Brincko) longest and best friend. They went to middle school, high school, and college together. Together, they have done just about everything.

She loves playing soccer, photography, the Sounders, her kids, and her husband - not sure what order:) She also has her own photography business doing family portraits. Despite all Holley does, she still manages to help her community by being the president of her homeowner association. I think I already said this, but she is TRULY AMAZING! How does she do it and do it so well?!

We look forward to designing many more great projects with Holley and always endeavor to behave ourselves to make her job easier!!

How Much Does a Home Addition Cost (Seattle 2021)? / November 19, 2021 by Josh Brincko

***amended for 2023 figures, most builders of full home projects tend to charge around $400 per square foot for entry level construction quality and $600 and up for high end quality. Smaller projects tend to have less economy of scale and can cost more.***

In my practice, we design about 100 residential projects per year, and when it’s time to get the project built, we usually reach out to several builders for construction estimates before we finalize the drawings, get structural engineering, and get building permits. This enables us to get a ballpark sense of what the project might cost to build before spending too much time (client’s money) on the details. In doing so, we often get a range of pricing back from builders, but no matter how many times we advise on what we think it’s going to cost, clients often do not want to believe it (they often think their situation is simpler than everyone else).

We get no financial incentive on the cost of construction as architects. We just design the house per the clients’ requests, advise them on decisions, and create drawings and documents to communicate the goals to the builder. Complexity is mainly what affects cost. Complexity comes in two ways: design complexity and construction complexity. When a client is on a budget, we design a very straightforward solution, so a builder can do simple, repetitive work using inexpensive, familiar materials (a rectangle with painted siding, shingles, carpet, and drywall).

Despite the simplicity of design, the complexity might be more related to the property itself. Is the property on a steep slope? When you dig, can the dirt be dispersed on site, or do you need to pay to truck it elsewhere? Can a concrete truck drive right next to the area of work, or is a big pump truck necessary? Is there anywhere for the builders to park, or will they need to cart tools and materials long distances every day? Is there a place for delivery trucks to easily drop lumber and other materials, or does a crew need to carefully coordinate the material delivery with a crew of laborers to quickly get the truck unloaded and material sorted and stacked while the delivery truck is holding up traffic? Is there space inside and outside the house for builders to spread out materials? Is there complicated demolition that requires parts of the existing house to be temporarily supported during construction? Is the soil mushy and require really deep concrete footings or steel pilings? Is the new addition above an existing part of the house that must be retrofitted and largely rebuilt to meet current codes for structural requirements, energy performance, redoing the whole roof, redoing all the siding, plumbing upgrades, and electrical upgrades?

There is so much that goes into a home addition that affects the cost of construction if you are not building on a simple, large, flat property with an existing house that was not recently/properly built. If any of the factors listed above are involved, it could easily double or triple the cost of typical construction. Projects in the Seattle area almost always have many of those factors, so the construction cost in Seattle is “through the roof.” The size of small projects doesn’t really have that much of an impact on the construction cost. Small projects carry all of the same steps and burdens as large projects, so they end up being really expensive. For example, if you need to update your electrical panel on a total house rebuild or on a small 1-room addition, the cost is the same on each project example to update the electrical panel regardless of the size of the project. There are many scenarios like this in construction where size plays a minor role in cost, and a big project might be marginally different from a small project. The diagrams below outline an example of a simple and a complicated project, and they illustrate the common construction cost estimates we typically see from builders.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE FULL VIEW:

CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE FULL VIEW:

Mistakes To Avoid When Working With An Architect / November 1, 2021 by S. Joshua Brincko

If you are working with an architect, this is your guide to help prevent problems with your working relationship. I personally service about 100 clients per year, I have been working in the profession since the 90’s, and I have had 4 previous clients who got upset with me. I’m no expert in what to do when things go wrong, but I do have a good track record on how to keep things good. So where do things go wrong? In my experience, here’s what I’ve encountered:

Money. This is the main stressor for most people. I had a client who got upset because we wanted them to pay us on time. We charge hourly for our time, and we send a bill at the end of each month for the time we spend working on our client’s behalf (within an estimated amount discussed ahead of time). After about 8 months of working together, this client paid their first 4 invoices about 2 months late. After the next 4 months, they didn’t pay their final four invoices despite many many many reminders we gave them. Once it got close to the 3 month late period, we let them know we would no longer do any further work until we were paid, and we also issued late fees according to our agreed terms. The client was happy with our work and continued to ask us to do more work - they just quit paying. We kept reminding them to pay, but they would not answer any money questions. They would only communicate with project-related questions. So, we next warned them that we would have our attorney file a lien against their property if they didn’t at least respond with a plan to pay us. They still didn’t respond with a plan. Then we started the process with the attorney, and we showed the client the lien paperwork with a notice that we would file it at the end of the week. They responded immediately, and they were mad to say the least. They owed us for our work and our attorney’s fees (according to the terms of our agreement). I consulted with mentors and other professionals to look at the situation before proceeding, and they all agreed that we should file the lien. Then the client eventually paid us, but they would not pay for the legal fees that we encountered due to their non-communication. So, we had to file the lien to recover those legal and lien fees we incurred. That was the last thing we wanted to do, and we even gave the client payment options such as a payment plan, an ownership share in their development project, and a few other options. They just didn’t respond. Silence. There was nothing for us to do but to file the lien since there’s time limits for that sort of thing. So what’s the moral of the story? Be communicative! If there’s an issue, talk to one another, so you can both plan accordingly. We were well under budget on this project and the client was happy with the work, so it was rather confusing that the client would wait so long to pay us since they actually expected to pay much more than we ever billed them.
Money. Another time, a client was upset because we billed them for our time that they asked us to spend. They claimed they didn’t want that work done yet, but they emailed us (in writing) that they wanted the work done. In this situation, the client requested two weeks earlier NOT to do that specific work. Then after two weeks passed, they emailed us again asking us to do that work. It’s in writing. First it says hold off. Then next it says to do it. I even followed up with an email that said, “ok we will get started on that work for you.” The client still didn’t want to pay for the work they requested because they claimed we didn’t listen to their initial request. We claimed that we did listen to the initial request (which is why we did not work on their project for 2 weeks), and we also did listen to the second request to continue with the work. They said that second request was meant to be just an FYI for when they authorize the work to proceed. I asked why their email said to update the drawings with a long list of requests, and why they didn’t oppose my followup email that said we would get started. They just said we didn’t listen. I asked several mentors and professionals to look over the correspondence, and they all agreed it looked like a clear authorization to proceed. The client got really nasty and started with name-calling. I just responded by offering to get a 3rd party mediator to review the situation since that is what our contract says. This irritated the client even more. I think this worried them since it would have been obvious to a 3rd party that they were incorrect. So what’s the moral of the story? Be clear! I don’t know what I could have done to be more clear, but communication is definitely key. This is why I followup EVERY call and email with a quick note about what I’m going to do before I do it. I was actually way under budget on this project too, and the client was happy with the work. It’s rather weird that a client would act this way, but I sense they just ran out of money.
Money. Noticing a pattern? People get concerned about money. I had a client that asked us to do some work over the phone. It was a very small project that would only require a few hours of work. Usually we send out a contract for signature before we start working. In this case, the client needed our quick help, so she emailed us the existing plans of the house, told us what to do over the phone, and we explained how much it would cost before we spent a couple hours on the small project. We got the limited amount of work done and emailed it to her with our bill. She didn’t pay it, but then she asked us to do even more substantial work. We decided to send over the contract for her to sign before we continued working (like we normally do). Once we sent it, she said, “I never signed this, and I never asked you to do the previous work. So it’s not authorized, and I’m not paying you.” I said, “why did you tell me to do the work over the phone and email me the drawings of the existing house? And why did you ask us to do more work after we did the initial work (and say it looks great)? And why did you ask us to do more work after you got our first bill?” She just didn’t have an answer and ghosted us. She was using the fact that we didn’t sign a contract yet to believe that she didn’t need to pay us for the work that she requested verbally and via email. In the end, we did convince her to pay what she owed, but it was not easy. So what’s the moral of the story? Sign the contract before starting any work. It’s unfortunate that this type of thing happens once out of 1000 projects, but it affects all projects thereafter. As the saying goes: one bad apple ruins it for all.
Money (again)! If it isn’t clear by now, people get stressed about money. We all do. In this circumstance, we designed an addition for someone, and we got through the very preliminary steps to enable us to have something drawn for builders to look at to give us rough estimates to build the project. As an architect, I don’t have control over what things will cost. Only a builder can agree to build something for a certain price. I can only guide people in the right direction to keep their project reasonable and hopefully in the right ballpark based on my previous experience with something similar. In this instance, I told the client that the addition they wanted us to design would generally be at least $300 per square foot to build. They were ok with that. The problem is that before you start designing a project, there isn’t a specific size or solution yet. You need to design it to know how big it is and how much it might cost. You can’t put the cart before the horse. You need to design something to know what it might cost. The key is to do as little designing as possible to get to a point where you have some basic drawings to invite builders to offer rough pricing. In this case, the client kept adding and adding and changing despite our plea to tone it down because they were already on a tight budget. They were also on a tight lot where the design solution was very tough to fit on the property within the zoning codes. Again, we needed to design something, so we could see if it would need tweaked to fit properly on the property. Once we designed it, we could then see if there’s any specific items that we would need to make smaller to get other things to fit within setbacks from property lines. After making these tweaks, the client would then make more changes, and this process went on for many months. Each time they asked for a change, we emailed them, “I suggest we not make any further changes to the drawings until we first get preliminary pricing from a builder to know if we are on budget or not since these subtle design changes do not have significant construction cost impacts, but they do cost more to design each time you request them. Let’s first get an idea of construction cost, and then let’s dial in the design accordingly just in case the construction cost necessitates the scope being reduced significantly.” Despite our repeated warnings, he did not heed our advice and kept asking for more and more design tweaks. Eventually we got to a point where we could get pricing, and some of the builders’ estimates were way over budget and others were just slightly over budget. That is normal actually. In discussions with the builder who was pretty close to the desired budget, we figured out what we could change about the project to keep it on budget. This required us to tweak the drawings again, as expected (and as explained to the client about 20 previous times). This angered the client, and he got really sassy with us. I think it was more of a case of realizing he was wrong despite all the verbal and written warnings we gave him that we predicted this would happen. So what’s the moral of the story? Listen to your architect! We do this same process over and over and over again. We know what will happen next before it happens. We know when it makes sense to take a risk. We know when we need to pause the process to check with others in the industry for further guidance. At the end of this one, the client was treating me and my staff really nasty, so I told him we cannot associate with people that behave like that. I set him up with everything we did for him, so a new builder and new architect could easily pickup where we left off. I said I would be happy to answer any questions that may come up and advise throughout the duration as he works with another firm. I don’t know what we could have done any differently here. Sometimes people just cannot get out of their own way despite the highly experienced advice that is offered to them.

In summary, the problems listed here are all the outliers. 4 times out of about 1000 projects. That’s not bad and problems should be expected. We have been very diligent about being very clear communicators since that is the root of all these problems. It does take 2 to communicate properly though, and people can have different communication styles. Since we do take our own communicating seriously, we always try to ensure our client communicates with us clearly too, so we can avoid problems. That has been very successful in the past 20 years.

Billable Work / October 1, 2021 by Josh Brincko

Like many professionals, architects charge hourly for the services they provide. I bill this way also. It is a fair way of billing since people pay for the time spend working for them and don’t pay for a guess I made on how long I thought it might take before I even started the project... even though I’ve become a pretty good guesser from doing this so long.

There is no loser… both parties win since they both get exactly what needed to be done.

This makes some people uncomfortable sometimes because they assume it means they are giving the professional an open checkbook, and they assume the professional will be dishonest and bill for too many hours. In reality, this is not possible since I give my clients an estimate of what I expect something to take. I also give them a commentary on each step of the work as the project moves along, so they are apprised of the work I am about to do before I do it. I am also so busy that I don’t have time to do unnecessary work on any projects and over-bill them. I work for about 100 clients a year, and for the 15 years I’ve been in business, I can only think of about 4 or 5 people that have ever been unhappy with my billing. In those situations, it was apparent that I was working with dishonest, unethical clients since I use the same process and protocols with every client. These people were of poor character to put it politely.

All that said, the hourly billing protects both the client and the professional. In bidding situations, the bidder will obviously over-estimate to protect themselves, and this means the client will inevitably be the loser. I do not think this is fair.

Most days, I work from 6am to 6pm and also many nights and weekends although I only bill about 2 to 4 hours per day. I wish my clients could see how much work I put into their projects that they end up not paying for. Why do I do it, and what am I actually doing the rest of the time? My wife has asked me, “what are you doing all day if you only bill for a couple hours?”… and here’s what I have said:

“Well, she told us to put the project on hold because she lost her job, but builders are still calling me with questions to provide their bids… so I want to keep the project moving for her to get it ready for when she is employed and ready again.”

“The building department is being so unreasonable and acting out of line, and I feel bad charging someone for the extra time I’m spending to deal with the stupidity of these $#@%ing bureaucrats.”

“This builder $#&@ed up and ordered the wrong material, so I am trying to figure out a way to make the wrong material still work, so my client can still get what they want, so it doesn’t mess up the schedule, and so the builder won’t have to buy new materials. I’m trying to make it a win-win-win for everyone.”

“My client told me they don’t want this, but I know they actually do want this… so I just need to do it and show them why it’s the best solution because it’s the right thing to do, and they don’t know better, yet. But they will.”

“The building department changed the code, so I’m reading it to see if it impacts any of my projects.”

“The building department is supposed to call later about a particular issue, so I’m reading the code to memorize the parts they will likely discuss to be ready to rebuke everything they say. I already know the stuff, but I want to spit it out verbatim better than they can.”

These are things that I guess he could bill for, but in some instances it is work that will not directly be used for a specific project. In all instances, it just makes him a better architect. I’ve seen clients argue over an hour of work he billed here and there, and I wish they could see the dozens or even hundreds of hours he spent that they didn’t pay for.

I’m an Architect. Here’s 6 Things I love: / September 1, 2021 by S. Joshua Brincko

Architects Love: Building exactly what is on the drawings. Of course there’s different ways of building something, but changing what has been designed/approved is terrible. It undermines years worth of thought, research, approvals, etc that the client and architect solidified together. The thing we designed corresponds with codes, budgets, views, waterproofing, aesthetics, client goals, etc. Changing it is like stealing years worth of time from a client. It is essentially taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a client and giving them something they did not pay for. It is so rewarding when the builder builds it the way it was actually intended.
Architects Love: Non-coplanar surfaces. What does this mean? Coplanar means two surfaces (planes) that align with each other. They are flush with each other. We commonly design different objects that intentionally look different from one another, so we intentionally offset them from one another to accentuate the contrast. All too often, we see builders “flattening” buildings. They take two different siding materials that were supposed to “bump-out” from one another, and they dumb it down and make it flat. Imagine cutting a hole in your button-down shirt and sewing a necktie in its place as a patch of sorts. The tie is flush with the shirt. This is not good, but we see it in buildings ALL the time. It looks so much better when different materials stack on one another rather than to be flat and flush with each other. That would be funny to sew a tie flush with a shirt though! Less funny for a building.
Architects Love: Hatin’ on building departments. To become an architect, you are inevitably highly trained. Building departments commonly will use stall tactics to prevent the issuance of permits for their own benefit to achieve two goals: 1. Generate higher permit fees, and 2. Prevent themselves from doing their job. Of course nobody will admit these things. Building plans reviewers will cite irrelevant codes or policies to stop the process of reviewing drawings (like claiming drywall is a dominant structural component), and this causes the architect to need to intervene to “clarify” and put them back on track (with a lot of arguing to get there). They don’t have interest in making good buildings. They often rely on irrelevant codes to make their own job easier. When people get into a rant about challenges they have had with building departments, architects LOVE to jump in and commiserate with them:)
Architects Love: Clients who trust our judgment. Sometimes clients hire us, and tell us what to do every step of the way because they “know what’s best.” They must have magically maintained a solid GPA through 6 years of architecture school, interned with an architect for several years, passed all the state board exams with the state architectural review board, maintained an architect’s license with continued education, and racked up years of professional experience to be able to advise on every unique construction and design decision on their building. Right… more like they watched a few YouTube videos and HGTV and are now “experts.” This completely undermines the value an architect can add, and it causes clients to lose out on the creativity an architect could provide. Imagine getting a surgery and telling the surgeon how to sanitize their hands, which scalpel to use, how to make the cut, and how to stitch it up. That wouldn’t work. It doesn’t work with the design of buildings either. There’s more specialized knowledge than can be explained (without going through the entire learning experience that an architect goes through). It is so rewarding, and projects succeed immensely when clients instill their trust in the architect.
Architects Love: HGTV. Just kidding. We despise HGTV. This is not real at all. Nothing about it happens in the architecture profession. There’s design time. There’s permitting. Construction costs $300 per square foot or more. The clients don’t leave for a few days and come back to a finished project. The designer doesn’t build the project - real, talented builders do. I got asked to be on HGTV Design Star, but the contract was a joke. No real architect would agree to that. When someone references something they saw on HGTV, I tune out and think of something more productive that will help their project.
Architects Love: Including the architect during construction. The easiest way to guarantee a disaster on your project is to put the decisions of saving time, saving money, specifying the best way to build something, structural safety calculations, and determining code requirements all in the hands of a builder. The architect knows everything about your project and actually has substantial training on all of these factors. It makes a lot of sense to keep the architect on board during the construction to ensure you get the best project for the best price. The architect is the best asset to the builder and client during construction.

Seattle Modern Architect & Artisan