| I received a call this week
from a pastor whose church had just constructed a large metal
building, including the concrete floor slab and the plumbing
beneath it. Because they were located in a rural area, they
constructed the building without a building permit. He was calling
to ask me to design the interior of the building after the fact.
Throughout my career, I have heard complaints
from potential clients and others that have been disappointed
with the results they have received from their architects.
Complaints cover a broad spectrum of issues.
Projects that go over budget. Plans that are not complete enough
to bid on or to build from. Mistakes were made that were costly
to remedy. Repeated phone calls to the architect that went unanswered.
Promises that were made in good faith that were not kept. In
some cases, though rare, simple incompetence.
During the selection process, the architect
they hired looked so good, seemed to have a great track record,
and had all of the answers to their problems. But after the
architect was hired, it was downhill all the way.
So when it comes your turn to pick an architect,
how do you avoid selecting the wrong one?
You will pick the right architect only if you
are willing to spend the time and to follow a process. The first
part of that process is in understanding architects as people,
then understanding them as professionals.
Consider Florence Littauer’s study on personalities.
She identifies people under four basic personality types. Sanguine
(popular), Choleric (powerful) Phlegmatic (peaceful) and Melancholy
(perfect).
Sanguines are very warm, friendly, outgoing
and fun-loving people. People nearly always gravitate to sanguines
because they are so personable. Sanguines make good salespeople
because they have the gift of persuasion.
Cholerics are very strong-willed and independent
people. They tend to be very determined, optimistic, and productive.
Cholerics make good managers.
Phlegmatics are very calm, easy-going, efficient
and dependable. They tend to be very empathetic about other
people’s problems.
Melancholies are perfectionists. They are very
analytical, idealistic and self-sacrificing. In my opinion,
the best architects are probably Melancholies.
But when churches interview architects, quite
often the person doing the presentation is a Sanguine. The problem
with that is that you end up hiring someone who is not the most
qualified to perform the architectural services, solely based
upon the force of his or her personality, rather than on his
or her qualifications.
So how do you avoid making that mistake? You
have to focus, not on the architect’s presentation, but on the
results that architect has historically produced.
Churches typically conduct their architectural
selection process like this. First, they send out letters to
a number of architects requesting that they send them a brochure
or a proposal. Then they ask them to come and make a presentation
to a building committee. The building committee then picks the
one that seems to be the most qualified. This is probably the
worst way to select an architect, because it does not lead you
to the information you actually need.
Here’s a better way, if you’re willing to invest
the time and energy.
Sending out letters to every architect in town
is fine, but you will have to thin them out fairly quickly.
Let it be known that you want to hire an architect who has a
proven track record with churches, and that you will not only
be interviewing the architects, but every church client that
they have worked for in the past five years.
Then start making phone calls to their clients
and asking questions. Were you happy with your architect? Was
he or she responsive to your needs? Able to solve problems?
Competent? Truly interested in your project? Honest? Willing
to work with you through difficult situations?
After the clients, call the contractors who
built their projects. Ask them, were the plans complete, organized,
accurate, and easy to understand? Was the architect easy to
work with? Was the architect’s presence on a jobsite disruptive
or helpful? Did the architect take responsibility for solving
problems, or did he or she push it off on the contractor? Are
you aware of other church projects that the architect had done
that were not on the architect’s list?
After the phone calls, go see their projects.
Talk with the people who actually use the building to see if
it meets their expectations. Talk with the people involved with
the building program to get their opinions of the architect.
Then conduct your interview, not at your church,
but at the architect’s office. Talk to the individual architect
or team of architects and engineers who will be involved with
your project. If there is a team of architects involved, find
out if they are the same people who produced the projects you
have already researched. That is very important, because previous
projects may have actually been done by people who are no longer
with the firm.
The goal of this whole process is to get you
to look beyond the person who is doing the presentation in an
interview (the Sanguine), and allow yourself to see the person
or team of people who are actually going to produce the project
(the Cholerics and Melancholies). By doing so, you are more
likely to hire the right architect for your project and get
the results you want.
Finally, you must be willing to pay the architect
a fee that is adequate to produce the job along with a fair
amount of profit. The disastrous fate of many projects has been
sealed even before they began because the church was unwilling
to pay a fair fee.
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