"Price is what you Pay and Value is what you Get" ~ Warren BuffetThe fee that architects charge to their clients revolves around the value that they provide as a product for their professional services. The professional service of an architect is proportional to the complexity and risk of professional liability with a project.
The Professional Regulations Board of Architecture has prescribed in their memorandum for the published 2010 Standards for Professional Practice, a schedule of recommended professional fees according to project types, for example, for a residential project the recommended fee is set at 10% of the probable construction cost, however, while these are only recommended, architects are free to charge any amount that does not go far from what is recommended. Some highly reputable architects charge insane amounts of fees due to their reputation and quality of work and many beginning architects charge the lowest to the point of under-charging and hurting their businesses just to compete in price wars with lesser quality substitutes.
Many people are surprised to learn how high architects charge compared to engineers or other non-professionals (who are practicing architecture illegally under R.A.9266), they may go as far as to judge an architect as greedy and are way over their heads, this is because the very low fee or free service providers have far more inferior or non-existent service process compared to what architects provide from a project's start to it's finish. Engineers or non-architects do not value architectural design and charge as low as they can to secure the construction contract of your project, they let you do the designs on your own or get low-paid draftsmen and hide their fees on the construction part when you already have committed to handing them your money, either they sacrifice the quality of the work or underpay workers or both to profit from your project because they didn't charge for design and other preliminary requirements to get your project.
Many low-quality providers will claim their services as free, to sign you up of their service and make a downpayment. Some will run with your money and some will squander your money to pay for their other projects that are in trouble and some may produce little and will take a lot of time to produce something with low-quality planning and design solutions. If you have worked with architects before you will know the difference and it would be obvious, but for first-timers, you might not know the difference until later and sadly too late.
Once you have realized where the architect's fees go to provide their service, you might find it not that surprising anymore at the end of this article. Below is the breakdown of what you will be paying for and rightfully, every decent folk should:
- Architectural Design Fee - First in the list of what you pay for is the architect's creative planning and solutions to your project needs from the start of your project, they customize a design for your specific requirements even if you have provided a floor plan idea, your land's configuration might not be suitable to your initial floor plans, problem-solving is partly what you pay. These are represented with drawings and preliminary cost estimates to help you see possibilities and decide better.
- Engineering Design Fees - you might be surprised that engineers will get payed from the architect's fee, but yes they are part of the design team after the architect's basic architectural plans and designs are approved, the engineers such as a structural engineer, electrical engineer, plumbing engineer and other engineers needed to design the entire building down to its detail will calculate and recommend materials to ensure the architecture is buildable. These are represented by engineering drawings, calculation reports, analysis reports, and specifications.
- Drafting and 3D Modelling Fees - the drawings and the computerized representation of their designs are usually done by employees and apprentices of the architect in an architectural office, they need to be compensated for working on these labor-intensive service instruments, while clients requests many design revisions, the more work is needed to update these files until the client is satisfied.
- Estimating, Scheduling, and Specifications Writing Fees - Estimating, project scheduling and writing design specifications are highly technical and take time to prepare, some architectural offices have dedicated employees working on these or the architect personally handle these documents. These are critical documents that complement the design drawings to help you make proper decisions about cost, quality, and schedule.
- Professional Liabilities Fees - This item is the riskiest part of providing professional services. Architects and engineers who will be designing and supervising your project are subject to legal liabilities under Civil Code, if for some reason your building after its completion broke down within 15 years due to error on their part, you can claim payment for damages if that happens, so you are paying the architect and his engineering team the legal risk and securing yourself a guarantee for your building's safety over that course of your building's operational period.
- Printing and Blueprinting Costs - This is obvious as of today that printing of large drawing sheets and other documents like estimates and specifications don't come for free, usually building officials require 5-7 sets of complete drawings and other building documents when applying for permits, they will get copies for each department, your personal copy, your contractor's copy, and other agencies or banks for some other requirements.
- Overhead Costs - If you have worked in an office or own a business, you know that there is a cost of doing business, offices incur a recurring cost of electricity, water, rent, communication, gas, food, office supplies, and other expenses to keep the operations going. This cost is usually relative to the cost of production and the frequency of meetings and the proximity of the site or meeting places to the architect's office.
- Construction Supervision Costs - In a regular design service, this cost is for periodic visits to the site or on emergency cases that the architect needs to ensure that his design is being implemented according to the contract documents. This can be negotiated and paid separately by the owner during the construction phase.
- Occupancy Permitting Costs - At the near end of the construction, the architect will verify if everything was built according to the original plans and if there are changes that must be made to the original plans, the architect now will create the "As-built plans" that is required to apply for "Occupancy Permit" that your project has been successfully constructed according to the scope of the contract. You will need the occupancy permit for applying for a permanent connection to public utilities. This cost can be paid separately or if the architect already included it in his/her fee proposal, verify this if which is the case.
- Taxes - Professionals are not exempted from income taxes and this can be paid separately by the owner or the architect opts to include it in his/her fee proposal to lessen the burden to the client.
Other fees that the architect may charge are special consultants that might be needed like new technology specialists and other research work that might be needed prior to design like business experts if in case of commercial buildings and other subject matter experts, during the design, or during the construction that might have significant cost savings or problem-solving benefits to the client. These costs might be charged additionally after the fee proposal was already accepted or if it was not mentioned in the owner-architect contract.
If you want to see how an architect's service fee proposal is presented on print, its breakdown of fees as well as the schedule and terms of payments, because the total architect's fee is cumulative and is rarely paid in full and upfront, download this sample form to give you an idea of how much relative to the size and complexity of a project. I hope this has cleared the stigma that non-architects have perpetuated to downplay the importance of hiring architects in terms of service costs for projects. Finally, if you value your peace of mind with your huge investment costs, paying for a reasonable fee for the right professional to handle your project is the best decision and investment that you will not regret. "Pag sa arkitekto, Siguradong Sulit"
If you want to see how an architect's service fee proposal is presented on print, its breakdown of fees as well as the schedule and terms of payments, because the total architect's fee is cumulative and is rarely paid in full and upfront, download this sample form to give you an idea of how much relative to the size and complexity of a project. I hope this has cleared the stigma that non-architects have perpetuated to downplay the importance of hiring architects in terms of service costs for projects. Finally, if you value your peace of mind with your huge investment costs, paying for a reasonable fee for the right professional to handle your project is the best decision and investment that you will not regret. "Pag sa arkitekto, Siguradong Sulit"
Read other articles:
- The Project Planning Workshop
- Five most essential things to know before deciding to design and build
- Best Way to have Better Control and Fast-Tract Your Project
- Why contracts are essential when engaging in services
- The Architect's Basic Design Service
- 7 reasons why Architects are seen as expensive and an unnecessary cost in building projects
- How to create a Design Brief for your architect
- Philippine architecture practice and P.R.C.'s position with Civil Engineers' encroachment in the architecture profession
- Architects and Architecture: Myths vs Reality
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