Thanks, will do! :)
Barbara, I think you have just started a "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" thing
My place as we bought it 
The same place after lots of beer
As we were building on the same footprint we only needed a building permit which I obtained using a few photos & some sketches . Nobody checked what we had done or seemed to care.
This was a scabby bar
Clearly off piste and I have always adhered to the rules but if a total stranger challenges the sexuality all members of a profession of which one is member and has been so for about 50 years some comment is perhaps justified. Carpenter isn't even vaguely amusing, just highly prejudiced. I'm sure that there are some gay architects, although I haven't met any, although I did meet one or two gay engineers. It's not acceptable behaviour on Carpenter's behalf and has nothing whatever to do with the use of an architect or any other professional in a construction project. There are rules about such things are there not? Now if he lived round here...........
Maybe there really is some hope for people like me who lay
everything out in a line and ask for the true and final answer.
Having met with a British Maitre d 'OUVRE who previously worked
in media ( all discoveries found at various stages....getting to know you )
and ended up as an estate agent....I presume that an architect plays a similar
role in the making good of a character property.
But oohps....become inspector Deane for a day or say to look deeply at
the project in hand.
After flitting around to look at vaguely started jobs a massive question
rang in my ears....is this for real...
Off I rushed to find a French Architect and we held court together until
we understood each other.
He had to know my budget and I needed to know his %
The choreography was excellent and every aspect, every more
flowed into place.
It was our design, his expertise and a decent bunch of artisans.
I started at the AA in 63! 50 years ago in September. I have done very little work in France and some time ago for English based clients. We just did basic designs and then handed the project over to a local Bureau d'Etudes. That worked fine. In England we were working in the middle of sensitive areas and usually on very high value properties, often in Conservation Areas and frequently listed buildings. The very business of getting planning permission became more and more complex and many other disciplines were brought in too. Lots of my clients were from abroad including huge companies, royal families etc and we had to deal with their property advisers or managers too. On a few occasions we had to operate client accounts. We did very detailed specs and schedules of works with every item separately priced and then when it came to valuations we usually did our own. We negotiated the building contracts after tendering and negotiated hard on final accounts. One well known builder took me out to lunch to negotiate a claim of £250k extra in the 80's and over the main course I told him he was wasting his time and he tore the claim up!One contractor offered me a personal bribe of £100k to get him a job. I never used him then or later. A major paint company offered me a weekend in a nice hotel in Venice if I endorsed their product. Never used it then or later! Another contractor got cheeky on site so I picked him up by his lapels and got him against the wall! (Might do that with an engineer soon!) We had a beer after! I do talk to architects in the UK and it's changed a lot. I'm sure that some things are for the better! I'm useless at CADS but can still.....
D R A W!!!!!
Graham, David - this path from Zog or wherever is going straight to the kitchen as the rest of us at the dining table (see SFN Netiquette) can't and won't join in.
Appreciate your useful contributions but pigeon fancying and planet zog is all getting a bit off topic...please .
Suzanne, there is a scale of professional fees for engineers [civil, structural, mechanical & electrical] in the UK, but once the recession of the early 1990's took hold it became increasingly difficult to find clients willing to adhere to the fee scale. Before long professionals were having to tender for projects, just as contractors did. Clients generally looked for the cheapest quote, although this needed to be accompanied by a track record which showed the lowest bidder to be capable of undertaking the project.
A qualified structural engineer should be able to work in any structural material, although there are engineers who specialize in working with stone, especially restoration projects. Structural steelwork, reinforced/pre-stressed concrete, and timber and the main structural materials used.
I think you should take advice mate. It's pretty clear that you must have had too much sun, or gin, when you were in Africa. You can pick up some nasty things down there you know. How posh -The Times! I would have thought you were more into Welding Weekly or Pigeon Fanciers' Monthly to browse whilst waiting at cockroach infested airports.
Hi David, you are certainly right that things have changed hugely in our profession over the years. I too started in architecture a long time ago (perhaps not quite as long as you ;-)? ) and well remember the days of drawing timber window details at 1:5 scale by hand and countless design visits over long cups of tea with clients. Sadly these days, in the search for fee reductions, it is indeed the design details stage that tends to get reduced. I've found a good compromise with clients here in France whereby with a thorough understanding of how Savoyard builders build and what type of products they are likely to use, we are able to produce designs even at Planning stage that take these things into account. Thus simple combinations of materials, clean volumes, straightforward positioning of window openings etc but put together in imaginative ways that bring life to a building. We've had good results and happy clients so far, although it's true that a few details might have been done differently if we'd been involved at a later stage!
Yes, I forgot to mention planet Zog, but I guess architects must come from somewhere. As for that dreadful paper you mentioned, it is for people who can't think for themselves. I took the Times when we lived in the UK.
Good luck. Some people manage to get a good result the way you are going. In fact it's very difficult to predict how much time will be spent by an architect on a private house as clients vary so much. Time basis work is few and far between. We were often required to attend evening and weekend meetings because the client was too busy. Some clients imply couldn't make decisions and weekly meetings often became very long and inconclusive. Other clients introduced interior decorators who then changed things or argued every decision already taken. I could fill several volumes with stories of almost unbelievable events. From 71 to 05 we did literally hundreds of private houses, among projects of other types as well. The majority were great, we had lots of clients who returned time after time, and recommended us on. Every now and then you came up with a difficult one and life being what it is it was difficult to turn work away as I had nearly 40 mouths to feed at the office at one time. Most architects doing private houses now are one or two man bands. It's very important to have an almost intimate relationship with your clients and time spent on briefing will be well rewarded.
Thanks David - interesting to know the history of how things developed. The cost engineer is younger than me (which makes me feel old at 36!) and to be fair - did not like me challenging his cost estimates one little bit. A bit of the old macho added to the mix only worsened the situation...
Graham, how are structural engineers fees calculated? We had no idea? Our fees are supposed to be end to end... The engineer was recommended by the architect. Also why are Structural Engineers in France called Ingeneer de beton - presumably they can work with other products than beton like chaux? The treatment of the fissures he has recommended is beton whereas our house is stone so I would prefer the repair of our fissure to be in chaux not beton. Presumably this is something the builder will override and do in chaux anyway?
I can see the drawings he has done are very technical and detailed and I assume that sort of thing takes a lot of time to put together as there are calculations to support the drawings which us clients don't see (or want to to be honest :)
"This explains why structural engineers think of architects as being the third sex; neither male nor female. They must all come from planet Zog." See you've been at it before. Did you have some sort of unpleasant childhood experience? I think we should be told........
As with many professions there are enormous differences between the training, experience and abilities of architects. Some have no experience or aptitude for private houses and I'm afraid to say that many emerging with degrees now have had no education in the real issues of practice at the coalface. I started a very long time ago and I was lucky to get experience in a very traditional company in Manchester were everything was done in the old way, down to doing full size joinery details with an understanding of how things were made, and immaculate contract administration. When I started a firm in London we did things the same way but at the end of the 80's it became very competitive indeed with massive fee cutting and one could simply not provide the same service and make a profit. Then projects became divided up into small bite sized chunks where the architect that did the planning application didn't do the working drawings or contract administration. Subsequently "cost engineers", "project managers" and even PR consultants have moved in and architects are having less and less influence on even the design. We used to believe that the devil was in the details and an architect should follow the whole project through. Fee levels are perhaps about half or so of what they were and many of the newer breed of architects are not interested in the crafting and on site issues. Equally if you have a really super builder then good results can emerge but very often the whole thing is pared down and here in France cheap materials and components from Bricodepot rule. A good result comes from having good people on the team and very often the fewer the better!
I have known some very good engineers, and some well educated, intelligent ones. However I never questioned their sexuality although now that you have reminded me I knew a quite well known one in London in the 80's who was one of the first users of bath houses in New York to die of AIDS. To be serious the general level of debate amongst contributors to this website is above the general level but as you have so adequately proved there are exceptions to this rule. I take it that you are a Daily Mail reader? I'm not sure at all that Darwin was right.........
David - I think we have ourselves an 'architectural designer' very good at doing drawings (except in 3D which is too tricky apparently) but when it came to technical questions regarding the drainage, heating, running of wiring, avoiding thermal bridges, energy efficiency all that sort of stuff he didn't advise at all...we needed an Etude Thermique or to let the trades propose the solutions.
For the trades documentation we found that the detail just wasn't sufficient to know what materials would be used or what brand. We can foresee that if we wanted to substitute something e.g. quality of pipe for underfloor heating - we would have no idea what the material quoted for was so would be open to hikes in estimates. We thought the whole point of the detailed design phase was to nail down this sort of detail - but in actual fact we've spent hardly any time with them discussing this - our time with them has been trying to understand the implications of the structural engineers drawings which has taken months and months to achieve.
I was also frustrated by the fact that if we asked for a 'order of magnitude' estimate they couldn't do it (for example to build a small log store outbuuilding (to hold the wood gasification boiler & wood) they couldn't do it until it had been past the Engineer de beton to specify and then it was designed to the n'th degree such that it would cost a fortune and we had to scrap it and put the thing indoors. Wasted effort when if they had told us OoM we would have said straight away - forget it we'll put it indoors.
In my industry (IT) we would guess the mandays effort and materials required for a job based on experience and be able to give an Order of Magnitude +/- 15% guesstimate. If someone has 35+ years experience surely they could OoM this type of thing...finger in the air before spending time putting down the drawings or am I asking for too much? Similarly for the prices of items like Velux - the designer had no idea how much the items he designed would cost so put in 2 x twin velux in two locations. I looked up the cost including the insulation and installation kits of these in the UK as couldn't find them on the French sites and asked why we were not simply putting in larger single velux. The 'designer' said oh but 2 looks pretty - I then argued the cost point and he said he had no idea how much they cost as that was the economists job.
Basically the company we used has a head architect (the face of the company), a designer who does the drawings and then an economist who does the spreadsheets of costs and breakdown of trades work schedule. They appear to work independently and handover at certain points unknown to us. This caused conflict as if I asked for the costs spreadsheet to be updated following a revision of plans then it wasn't done for months so we had no idea of the impact of the changes in the drawings on the budget until a very late stage. All that was signaled was an increase of course but never quantified the extent. Not surprisingly we had a shock when it was finally 'mise a jour'.
I think from my experience I would say, by all means use an architect to do the plans & work breakdown - we couldn't have easily done our plans and detailed drawings without one BUT sign up for each stage separately so that if everything progresses well you can continue or if not you can get quotes yourselves and are not tied into an end to end contract if you find that the estimated costs are beyond your budget.
We made the mistake of changing architects from a bilingual one (based a bit too far away from us) to a local one thinking it would be easier to manage locally but actually we think we probably should have stuck with our first architect - UK trained (lesson learnt and I will concede that the architect concerned is entitled to say 'I told you so') as the UK architects appear to delve into the technical details more than the 'designer' we appear to have employed.
For us now we are going to builders ourselves with the engineers drawings and waiting for quotes. I know it won't be easy - I really did want to go end to end, but we just can't afford it. We are not seeing economies of using the architect - the economies have been through us challenging the design and getting our own estimates. That is our experience so far, those of you in the know will probably say the worst is yet to come...but I am going to remain optimistic and rely on the help and experience of the wonderful people on SFN to guide us through. Merci en avance x
Yes David i agree to an extent but there's a lot to be said about having a builder who can make immediate alterations or adjustments to his own plans onsite without the need to run this past an architect each time. I guess it all depends on your budget and how much imagination you require in your project.
For me, training is important but experience is invaluable. So if you can find such a builder then it has to be considered as an option if you have a tight budget.
I am a structural engineer, albeit, now retired. Some 38 years ago, I was stuck for three days at Maiduguri airport in Nigeria due to violent sand storms. I got into conversation with an American structural engineer who told me that American engineers think of architects as the “third Sex” - neither male, nor female. After more than 40 years of working with architects from many nationalities, I think I understand where he was coming from.
Personally I've never met a builder, or indeed an "architectural" designer with the skill and imagination of a good architect to design buildings be they extension or new build projects but you won't be surprised by my defence of the architectural profession. I've come across some good builders but equally there are plenty of cowboy ones around and Brittany has had its share. Very few builders at main or subcontract/specialist level have had any training at all in design at any level which amounts to much more than manipulation of a computer aided drawing package, and additionally very few have any design or professional indemnity insurance. What ever you do don't pay a builder up front as masses of people are cajoled into doing!