Choosing an Architect: Fees, Scope and the Questions That Matter

Most clients compare architects on two things: the portfolio and the fee. Both are the wrong comparison, because the portfolio shows what a practice was allowed to do and the fee is meaningless without knowing what it buys.

How fees are structured

Three models are in common use.

Percentage of project cost. The most common for full-service work. The fee is a percentage of the final construction cost, billed in stages. The advantage is that it scales with complexity. The criticism, fairly made, is that it rewards a more expensive building, which is why it works best with a client who has an independent cost consultant.

Lump sum. A fixed fee against a defined scope. Cleaner for the client's budgeting, and it puts the risk of extra effort on the architect. It only works if the scope is genuinely defined, which means the brief must be settled before the fee is agreed. Where a lump sum goes wrong, it is almost always because the brief moved.

Per square foot, or per stage. Common on interiors and on repeat typologies where the effort is predictable.

Whichever model, the fee should state the number of design iterations included, what happens if the brief changes, what site visit frequency is covered, and when each instalment falls due.

What the stages actually contain

A full architectural service in India generally runs:

1. Concept design, site analysis, brief interrogation, massing options, area statement against the permitted FAR.
2. Schematic design, a resolved plan, section and elevation. Structure and services engaged.
3. Statutory drawings, the set for sanction.
4. Detailed design and tender documentation, the full working set with schedules and specifications, sufficient to price and build from.
5. Construction stage services, site visits, queries, shop drawing review, material approvals, certification.

The fault line is between stages 4 and 5. Many appointments quietly stop at stage 4, or reduce stage 5 to occasional visits. That is a legitimate arrangement if everyone knows it, but a building designed by one party and supervised by nobody is where drawings become suggestions.

Ask explicitly what stage 5 includes. How many visits. Who answers site queries and within what time. Who approves materials. Who certifies. If those answers are vague, the fee is not comparable to a fee that includes them.

What is usually excluded

Structural and MEP consultancy (sometimes engaged directly by the client, sometimes coordinated by the architect), landscape, specialist consultants such as façade, acoustics or fire, statutory fees, physical models and photography, and, importantly, redesign caused by a change of brief.

Two fee quotes are only comparable when the exclusions are laid side by side. They usually are not.

The questions worth asking

1. Who will actually do the work? Not who is in the meeting. Which people, and what else are they carrying.
2. How many projects of this type and scale have you delivered? Delivered, not designed.
3. Can I speak to a client whose project went badly? Every practice has one. How a firm answers this question is more informative than the portfolio.
4. What does your construction-stage service include, in visits and in hours?
5. What happens when the contractor asks a question you have not drawn? The answer reveals the whole working method.
6. What is your position on cost? Do they track it, does someone independent, or is it the client's problem.

On choosing by fee

The fee for full architectural services is typically a small single-digit percentage of the construction cost. A saving of one percentage point on the fee is a rounding error against a five per cent overrun caused by an incomplete drawing set.

That is not an argument for paying more. It is an argument for buying the whole service rather than a discounted fraction of it, and knowing which one you have bought.