On Site Observation – Why you should engage your Architectural Designer

A recent issue on one of my renovation projects just highlighted for me again why Onsite Observation is so valuable for the client. This is offered as an optional Architectural service after building consent has been approved typically. Its ignored for approximately 95% of residential projects in New Zealand with clients either wanting to project manage themselves or engaging a builder or building company confident in their ability to handle consenting, design and building code issues themselves.

When a client engages a competent builder who understands their role, its usually okay. Most smart builders know you don’t change the consented design. When you get a builder who just makes changes with no idea or regard for the legal and design implications, it can be a disaster.

This is exactly what happened on this renovation project. Not engaged for Onsite Observation but having produced a comprehensive and approved building consent set, I left the builder, a family friend of the client, to do his part of the job.

And it was all going fine until…...the structural engineer called me. “It’s not what you designed” was a line from his opening statement.

What has transpired has slowly unfolded a nightmare for this client.

It turns out this builder thought he knew better, and he convinced the client, who blindly trusted him, that deviating from the consent plans was okay. “I gave them what they wanted” was a quote of the builder re-laid to me second hand by the Engineer.

That convincing lasted until the Council put a stop works order on the project.

Suddenly the client contacts me. Could I please come out to site to document the design changes made by the builder, sort out his misjudgement in design and get them back on track?

It’s a major, there is construction work that needs to be redone. There are structural and weatherproofing issues and on top of that potentially a Resource Consent issue. It has turned a renovation project into almost a new build project midway through construction.

And their budget was light to start with. All the decisions that the Structural Engineer and I made during the design process was to make this project a reality without making it financially impossible. This was relayed to the client in conversation, emails, and reports, but that sadly was forgotten when the builder told them what they wanted to hear. All that careful consideration has gone to waste. Its not only sad to see but it is also incredible frustrating to what arrogance and blind trust can destroy.

And so, begins an expensive, time consuming and risky process for this client to get the project back on track. Their home is unliveable, and their budget might not allow for it to be finished. As for the builder? As far as I am aware he is still on the job, well for the moment at least, although there is not much he can be doing with a stop works order in effect.

All of this could have been avoided if the right people where asked whether this was a good idea or not before any changes were made.

It could have just been a phone call or even better still a conversation on site. And this project might be easily finished if the client and builder realised the value of an Architectural Designer. But my job was just to draw plans, right?

Builders are very clever skilled people, but there is a reason they don’t design buildings and there is a reason that they cannot submit building consents. Blinding trusting someone’s guidance when they are not qualified or registered to do the job happens all the time. Surrounding yourself with a team of people who can help you navigate your renovation project can mean the difference between being stuck with a renovation nightmare or finishing your dream home.

Architects and Architectural designers offer On Site Observation for very real valid reasons.

It reminds me of a saying a friend told me, “If you think my fee is expensive, you don’t understand the true cost of a cheap job.”