When people hear architect they assume you are designing houses, office buildings, shopping centers etc. However there is always a special client out there wanting their architect to push the envelope or go beyond the stereotypical project or provide some unexpected service. The following are some architects and designers who shared their most unusual requests from clients.
Sarah Lorenzen
To have a water witcher find the utilities (with a divining rod) on a university site prior to breaking ground for a new science research building.
Robert Ivanov
A special client wanted to have all his windows of the villa bulletproof.... which obviously sky rocketed the budget... And at the end you just need a good sniper at 1 km away when you are taking a sun bath in your garden.... and the bulletproof windows are useless.
Ben Levinson
Buckerfields, a farm and landscape supply store, approached me to design a "Chicken Coop" which they then put on their web site to have local homes start their own ten-chicken backyard farm. Buckerfields had one of these "Chicken Coops" built and had an in store raffle.
Jose Nuno Beirao & Miguel Braz
Provide a bedroom door facing the lawn. Client said: "I like to roll on the grass after waking up"
Naseer Ahmed Khan Orakzai
I designed a sitting space for recitation of Quran under the shelter around the grave of my client's father.
Emad Khaja
In the 1970's when I was working for the 3D/International, our office was in the Galleria in Houston. Galleria had/has an ice skating rink. When our Client Mr. Galadari, from a place called" Dubai", arrived he was thrilled to see the ice rink, and the layout of shops around it. We were working on a Hyatt Regency Hotel & Galleria Apartment complex for him in Dubai. We basically knew the climate, the lifestyle of people there, etc. When we heard him request for an ice skating rink, we were amused! Eventually we incorporated the rink and the retail shops around it, and it has been a very successful idea.
Rasha Sayed
Do we really need to have structural support here? I need my building to be a floating one, with a limited budget.
John Pedersen
We were asked to do a loft in a client’s daughter’s bedroom like the one in the Princess Diaries.
Sean O’Rourke
The client came to town for a 3 day set of meetings. They asked to be taken to the best strip clubs in town.
Earl Jackson
More business-related than design: I once had a potential client ask me during introductions and a site visit, "So how does this work? You go back and do a bunch of designs and if I like one of them, I hire you?"
Shima Akbarzadeh
A client who wants a garden full of plants in a tall tower, regardless how he could water the plants.
Joseph Fernandez
I was requested to design a hidden room, with a secret access door and reinforced walls to isolate it from physical access and electronic detection.
Yeshaya Shor
I had a request for a synagogue to be designed in the formal character of a barn. I dubbed it The Barn Synagogue. The client and I developed the idea together since there was an existing barn we intended to renovate, but later turned out the structure was not sound. So we designed a new barn typology like structure in its place.
Jonathan Bolch
We had a client that we carefully designed a large modern residence for. After their review of the drawings they sent us back the elevations requesting that we “Spanishfy” them (tile roofs, rounded gables, etc).
Thomas Kosbau
We designed an apartment around a client's two cats. We diagrammed the cats’ movements around the new design on a 24 hour schedule, creating a bathroom just for them (with their own flushing toilet) and even design building a cat condo out of branches we collected from the client's country home.
William J. Martin
I did an addition designed entirely for cats ... three-season, cat door, bird feeders, wide window sill, cat condos ... etc.
Jonathan Kirschenfeld
I'd say to design a floating public swimming pool. Took us 7 years but we got it done and open in 2007.
Lawrence Merighi
A client brought wallpaper samples to our office for her master bathroom and asked, which one would she look better against when naked?
James Bowen
1- Client requested his kitchen be designed as if he was flying the starship enterprise.
2 - I was asked to design a client’s basement to allow for the study of levitation of horses.
David Maurer
A legal arms dealer from Alabama stated "Money is not an issue." His wife made the contractor tear out $150,000 worth of interior solid cherry trim because "the stain isn't right."
Jerry Eben
A client’s discussion: "We should build a store without any public toilet rooms or a break room for our employees. Why should we waste valuable floor space for waste (he used other words here) when customers and employees can go at home. If we have to give our employees a break, let them go to the McDonald's across the street. I am sure that they would be glad to get the business!"
Aric Gitomer
Client: My wife is tired of cleaning up the floor in the bathroom that my boys share please specify a urinal in addition to the water closet in their bathroom and while you are at it put one in the master bathroom also.
Elaine Roberts Drafters & Designers
Provide a separate room off the foyer for the cats litter boxes, with exhaust fans, heat and motion lights or maybe a slide from the second floor to basement for the grandchildren.
Antonio Aiello
I had one of my client have me sit and go through an entire scope and program meeting with her then 10yr old son. It was interesting to say the least! He was asking for an entire science laboratory in the NYC townhouse to do tests and experiments next to his bedroom. He wanted gas burners for the beakers, walk in refrigerators and a skylight on the third floor of a five story home. We tried to accommodate the best we could but that was a fun meeting.
Roger Lebida
A client who was a germaphobe asked for the entire interior of her house to be able to be hosed down, i.e.: stainless steel kitchen, etc.
Adam Raiffe
I had a client in Miami who asked for a free standing bathtub in his bedroom. Not a particularly odd request, however he asked us to design the tub to be at the foot of his bed so he could slide from the bed to the water.
Aric Gitomer Architect, LLC is a small, boutique residential architectural practice giving one on one attention to each homeowner. Aric Gitomer, AIA principal architect has been creating residential architectural solutions for over 30 years. He specializes in home renovation, residential design ...
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We had a someone (not the client specifically since it's a government project, but a significant department rep pulling in a 6-figure tax-payer funded salary) honestly ask during an unrelated meeting, to remove the rebar from all columns in order to prevent someone, somewhere, from chipping at the slab and recording conversations because metal conducts sound. The columns they were worried about were 1.4m in diameter and located on the 2nd level of a 18-storey building spanning an entire city block.
The above comment was brought to you by my (mostly) anonymity. No way I would post that story under my real name.
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Not mine, but I once interviewed a custom interior mural painter and in his/her portfolio was a bedroom in a suburban house done up like a meadow with the walls painted as field views and the carpet like grass and a sculpted plaster tree in the middle. The clients were childfree but would dress up like children and read stories aloud in this room.
No judgement at all: as long as it's consensual I don't care what who wants it or how it's used. I wish I had more work like that, in fact.
Reminds me of this Oakland firm which I admire greatly: https://www.becausewecan.design/interiors/
Facilities to perform a mandatory decontamination procedure for every person entering the house (use your imagination). I actually suggested something similar to the decontamination facility in Dr. No.
Same client - four kitchen sinks: one kosher, one for vegetables, one for dishes, and another for washing the family dog - I kid you not. All 8,000 sf (originally 4,000) to be built for the price of 3,500 sf, with all natural non-toxic materials, boo-coo interior stone, copper roof, full custom everything, etc.
The owner of 7 Manhattan high-rises demanded a hard $1m budget to put a $2m addition on a house that required $1m in repairs and maintenance.
I really like the idea of being able to hose down the entire place, since we're trying to potty train our kid...
In the last restaurant I did I speced floor drains in the washrooms. The owner cheaped out and didn't put them in. A year later, after cleaning up some unspeakable mess, he told me he wished he had.
Oh my, makes you wonder what quality of food they serve...
Fantastic, actually. 2 CIA trained chefs. It's the quality of the clientele that was the problem.
Do a firehouse sometime; those guys will hose down everything using a 1-1/2" firehose, ladders and mops plus wash their trucks in the bay. Even the kitchen I had to stop specifying laminates because they'll rub through it within a year since they clean non-stop; stainless with a random etch (also learned they'll scratch that too). Hardest one; Burn tower... light it up, put it out with cold high pressure water.. over and over. You'll learn the term "sacrificial layers" and what rapid thermal shock does to building materials.
Mightyaa.... what kind of spec material did they end up with that was resistant enough to their regimen?
Great idea for an article!
Thanks Bench!
Resi renovation of a mid-century ranch for a retired Catholic Bishop. No joke-He requested a secret room that could be accessed from the garage.
That should at least be investigated, I hope you reported it, you wouldn't want to have aided in something illegal now would you?
Was it to be soundproofed, too?
We had a someone (not the client specifically since it's a government project, but a significant department rep pulling in a 6-figure tax-payer funded salary) honestly ask during an unrelated meeting, to remove the rebar from all columns in order to prevent someone, somewhere, from chipping at the slab and recording conversations because metal conducts sound. The columns they were worried about were 1.4m in diameter and located on the 2nd level of a 18-storey building spanning an entire city block.
The above comment was brought to you by my (mostly) anonymity. No way I would post that story under my real name.
Tons of requests for secret rooms - I've become somewhat of an expert, so get referrals from one furtive client to the next. The downside is I can't take people to see some of my best work, or photograph it. I've also found lots of existing secret rooms while doing field measuring - I just draw around them and leave the big void, and neither I nor the client mention it...
Soffits for electric trains - throughout the entire house (except the secret room). I do like the idea of having a formal dinner and suddenly the husband's train rushes through the dining room.
Dog rooms - with dog shower, radiant floor, automatic feeders, dog treadmill, closet for dog's extensive wardrobe...
Client who insisted that I "figure out how to make it work", when I advised against putting her inherited huge tiered crystal chandelier (suitable for conference center ballroom) in a basement apartment with 7'-6" ceilings. I did not figure it out, and got fired. She said she was going to hire her neighbor's nephew who "is good at spatial things."
Absolutely no interior corners, because corners "let the bad energy collect and gang up".
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