Over the years we have done hundreds of projects and only about 10% of them have employed us to do site visits as part of our service. You may ask why so few, well it’s basically because most Architects remove this crucial service from their work stages to reduce their fee (and work load) and only add this in if the client is prepared to pay higher fees for it. Of course not being part of the construction process of a project has its pro’s and it’s cons but it has become clear to us that cons far out way the pros in the long run. Almost 90% of time when an Architect is not involved in the building process the project will not turn out the way it was intended too. In fact, it will tend to turn out the way the builder wants it to and the end result is what you as the Architect will be judged on not the builder especially when it come to ad hock changes that are done while building.
We feel that the long term repercussions of this and the effect on our reputation is not worth the few short term pros in not doing site meetings on all our projects. So as part of our service we have now included site visits every two weeks for nine months of the building process as part of our initial design fee. Obviously this comes with a few T & C’s which we will publish on our website.
As a newly established firm we feel that this service will allow us to create the Architecture that we and our clients want to see from the very beginning to its end and help us create the image and reputation we would like to maintain throughout our careers.