November, 1917 
45 
CONSULTING AN ARCHITECT 
What an Architect Is and What He Is Not—Costs and These Times—The 
Things to Expect f rom Yo.ur Architect and the Things He Is To Expect from You 
OST home builders are 
convinced of the neces¬ 
sity for employing an 
architect. But I doubt if 
it can be said that most 
home builders are fully 
aware of what they should 
expect from their archi¬ 
tect and what their archi¬ 
tect is entitled to look for from them. 
First of all, let us rid ourselves of some 
common prejudices. 
T HE architect is not merely a super-drafts¬ 
man who takes the client’s rough ideas and 
perfects them in blue prints for a builder. If 
he were nothing more than that the profession 
would have ceased to exist ages ago. 
The architect is not an expensive luxury 
restricted to the rich man who can afford to 
pay high fees for services rendered. He does 
exact a fee—the architect must live—but in 
the end he saves more than he costs. One 
dollar wisely invested may save you the loss 
of twenty dollars invested unwisely. The fee 
saved on the beginning of the house may prove 
a loss when the house must be finished to your 
satisfaction by an architect. In other words, 
the question of whether you shall employ an 
architect or not resolves itself into a matter 
of wise or unwise investment. 
The purpose of the architect is not to make 
a client spend more money than he had origi¬ 
nally intended, but to direct the expenditure 
so that a livable house will result, one that the 
client will be proud to own and the architect 
proud to show. 
T HIS insistence on monetary affairs re¬ 
quires an explanation. 
A good house—a house good to live in and 
Hood to look at—is not to be had without the 
expenditure of time and effort and money, 
t ime and effort you may not be able to reckon, 
but the money you must. And there are some 
serious money matters to be considered before 
building a house. 
It is not possible to build a house today for 
the sum it would have cost five years ago or 
even last year. The past decade has seen a 
steady increase in both the cost of materials 
ind labor. This revision upwards has affected 
ill parts of the country. And it is no use 
arguing that because Mr. So-and-So’s house 
cost $4,000 five 
years ago, it can be 
duplicated for the 
^ame this year. The 
plain, cold fact re¬ 
mains that the house 
which cost $4,000 
five years ago will 
ost $5,000 today. 
And I feel safe in 
saying that $5,000 
is the minimum 
figure for which it is 
possible to build a 
house of distinctive 
architecture and 
lasting construction 
H. F. SEDGWICK 
today. Bungalows and cottages may be an ex¬ 
ception, but there is no exception for the full- 
fledged, all-year house designed to give com¬ 
modious quarters to a family. A contractor 
may put you up a box for less, but he will not 
be able to build you a house of which you will 
be proud because of its individuality and fine 
workmanship. 
O NE of the most damnable theories ever per¬ 
petrated was the insinuation that houses 
can be made from piano cases and furniture 
from barrels, that beautiful little homes that 
will last through several generations can be run 
up without skilled designing and supervision 
and for an insignificant sum. 
If you want a good home, you must pay for 
it—pay for the expert advice of the architect, 
for his supervision of the work, for his pro¬ 
tecting you in the selection of materials and 
the contractor. It is far better for you to have 
this understanding about expense at the start. 
Your decision will measure, in some way, how 
deep your interest really is in this matter of 
creating a house worth living in and worth 
being proud of. 
S UPPOSING, then, that you are convinced 
of the necessity for employing an architect 
and you are willing to invest the effort and 
money to create a house worth while, what 
should you expect from your architect and what 
shall he expect from you? 
You have an idea of the sort of house you 
would like to build. You feel that this is 
the sort of architectural environment in which 
you want to live and bring up your family. 
These ideas, together with the detailed re¬ 
quirements of your family and the approxi¬ 
mate amount you want to spend, will be the 
things you lay before the architect. 
With these three points in mind he will make 
sketch plans. He will help you visualize that 
his type of house fits your site and your needs, 
and what its possibilities are. If you are not 
satisfied, any number of changes can be made 
until the exact ideas are set down. Then the 
working drawings are made up, the builder 
selected, and the construction commenced. 
At this point, just a word of advice. Few 
houses are finished exactly as originally 
planned. As the work proceeds you will want 
some changes. The fewer the changes the 
better it will be for your purse. The extras 
often represent an appreciable addition to the 
estimated cost—extras such as more chimney 
stacks, more bathtubs and bay windows you 
did not dream of when the first design was 
approved. However, your satisfaction is what 
the architect is aiming to accomplish, and even 
if the house costs more than you planned, it 
were wiser for you to be perfectly satisfied 
This satisfaction presupposes the use of good 
materials and good workmanship, and it is up 
to the architect to see personally that both of 
these go into the construction of your house. 
T HE matter of the architect’s fee is one on 
which the layman may be vague. The 
general rule is six per cent for commercial work 
in cities and ten per cent for residential work. 
This is based on the cost of the finished house, 
and is reasonable enough. A larger percentage 
may be determined on, or, in some instances, 
the architect may be paid a lump sum. The 
architect who charges less than ten either in 
vites watching or is a poor business man. 
Payment is usually made in fifths. The cu> 
tom followed generally is to present a bill for 
three-fifths when working drawings and speci 
fications have finally been adopted, and the 
remainder when the work is completed. 
In only the rarest instances does the archi 
tect handle all the moneys concerned. The 
contract for building a house is made between 
the owner and the builder, and the owner pa>> 
the builder direct. While the narrowest inter 
pretation of the architect’s work is to design 
a house and assemble its specifications, he is 
a poor architect indeed who does not superin¬ 
tend the job personally. This protects both 
owner and architect. In this way the architect 
carries out his relations with the builder. 
I T is a favorite complaint of architects when 
showing their work to prospective clients to 
excuse this detail or that on the ground that 
the client insisted on it being included in the 
house. This may be the architect’s fault or it 
may be the client’s. Mutual concession always 
makes for cordial results in such matters, al¬ 
though both parties concerned should be ulti¬ 
mately satisfied. As one architect recently ex¬ 
pressed it, “The majority of things that people 
greatly desire are matters of detail. The in¬ 
tensive housekeeper will come in with a dozen 
plans and photographs of model kitchens, 
model pantries and the latest approved hygienic 
kitchen cupboards. 
In a case like that I 
do not try to inter¬ 
pose any suggestions 
at all: I do just what 
I am told to do.” 
In the last analy¬ 
sis, the house is yours 
and not the archi¬ 
tect’s. If you de¬ 
mand the impossible, 
it is his duty to pro¬ 
tect his reputation by 
diplomatically show¬ 
ing you the right, 
and the practical 
way of doing what 
vou demand. 
