Hello
As I see it you have 2 questions:
Level of Fee to come and see.
With all due respect any person worth their salt will charge a fee to go over in depth ideas however it should be refundable if you go ahead. It seems what you want is to get a feel for the person so these rules apply:
- Select at least three professional and call them to book a short 15 to 30min appointment, outline project, your brief and that you just wish an initial “meet and greet”
- Make sure they specialist and/or have expertise in your area of needs (heritage residential, not industrial, commercial)
- Go to their office and/or have a short coffee together
- Get him/her show you their portfolio of work
- Ask about deadlines met or missed and why, costs blow out and why, how they approach work, get a feel for the person
- Ask about the PI insurance they carry professional associations etc…
- Make sure the person you engage is the person doing the job, not a junior (especially architects)
- Get three recent references relevant to your project; don’t be swayed by flash presentations/pictures, website (especially architects)
Case in point: I recently got a proposal from two suppliers one for web and one for green design for my FM company. Web sounded great, looked great but was slack and never came back 100%. Green design proposal was swift and looked great but the 3 refs showing minimal real experience, i.e. one never called back, one was simple walk through advice and third was a uni who had no idea of what was good or bad service so not that challenging for the consultant and thus not encouraging for my need.
Go away and do your research. There should be no fee for the above.
If you like all that invite a fee proposal and be willing to pay a minimal fee on the refund system if they ask. That way you don’t waste their time. Have a defined brief of what you want ready to submit and make it clear what you expect.
Selection of Architect v Designer.
Disclaimer: I use to work as designer and the architect v designer debate is close to my heart.
It is the
individual's skill, ability, customer service and expertise that matters not the qualification.
Whilst the architects would like to tell you all designers are backyarders that is rubbish. They don’t tell you some of the best international award (who don’t discriminate between designers and architects) winning buildings in this country are designed by designers!
They don’t mention 85% of all homes are completed by designers. They don’t tell you that some designers actually lecture to architect students at Uni.
So nowadays unless the guy is $500 all-inclusive and only cash most professionals are just that.
Visit:
http://www.bdav.org.au/
http://www.architecture.com.au/i-cms?page=1
Are links to professional assoc in state of Vic. Again the rules above apply.
I would expect to pay in the order of $2000 for a professional custom design.
A key selection is real experience of costs. I run a commercial building company and I can tell you I had an architect swear to me black and blue his design had met the $2.5M budget and it was actually $4.5M when I simply added it up. He then replied well good design costs more!!! He got sacked. Building Designers work closer with building and usually have much better, real work knowledge of cost and with out the attitude that unfortunately some of the architect has.
It isn’t there fault. Uni are notorious for teaching aesthetics over everything else including build ability, cost control or practicality. And for those who think I am biased consider this:
Professional Indemnity Insurance for designer is a lot
less than architects. Why? Because they make less mistakes and get sued a lot less. Insurance Companies don’t care what qualification is on the letterhead, and so shouldn’t you.
Regards, Peter
