We do this all the time. They get fired or can't negotiate the CD phase, and we get hired. I guess I never thought about any copy right issues.

just change the design 10% and it's all good

Is 10 percent some sort of bench mark. I'm leary of this since I have had this work in reverse for me. Clients seem to think they own my design and can do what they what with it.

as an architect you can be hired for all or any phase of design process. if client comes to you and says "i have this design documents and i'd like to hire you to do the construction documents for them," you can sign a different contract stating your scope of work and start putting it together. if there should be any design changes after that, you should have a different contract for it or include the possibility in your initial contract.
my two cents as a licensed architect.

if there is any situation about the design credits, original designer should be credited if their work is substantially followed.

Be warned, the projects I've done that started this way have rarely been profitable. There is a reason the other architect isn't following thru. Maybe he doesn't have a clue and his design will show it once you get into it, and one thing leads to another and what looked simple, turns into a nightmare. Maybe the client is high maintenance and the first architect had to propose a high fee to finish CD's knowing the client's tendencies.

by the way, there is a huge difference between "design sketches" and set of "design development" drawings, which a set of "construction documents" can be based upon.
if the client is coming to you with "sketches" that means they still don't have design development done which is the heart of the design process. so you should maybe tell the client those "sketches" are not enough to base a set of construction docs.
all these terminology is clearly defined in the books.

i am just speculating on the info you have given to us.

I agree with Orhan a 100% but I would follow through and contact the original architect, and add a clause to the contract and on all drawings to state that it is based on original drawings by architect X... not out of copyright but professional respect/ethics

the original architect may not want to be credited.

the other question is that do you want to get involved with being an 'Executive Architect'? Even if it's all on the up-and-up, is that the sort of work you want to be doing? If the answer is 'no', there's no reason you can't be up front about that.

Aren't there huge intellectual property issues here? I create something, but then a client can take that vision and creative work, give it to another hack architect who ruins it?

As an architect, do I have to hand over the drawings or the idea? Can't I refuse? Does the client legally own the vision, or just the drawings as drawn? (Meaning: can the client take one architect's vision and allow another architect to bastardize it?)

You may want to check your state's laws, particularly if the drawings are stamped/sealed by the original architect.
Some states - Texas is one that I can think of - retain laws that require that you must notify the original architect that you are working on the project, and you may be required to provide the original architect with copies of the modifications.
Years ago these laws were much more common, and many more states required that you get keep a trail of correspondence with the original architect AND that you determine that there were no outstanding financial obligations between the client and original architect. The AIA had a similar collection of policies binding its members. For the most part these laws and AIA rules have been thrown by the wayside.
There's rarely any copyright issue if ANY design changes are made at all - in fact courts have held that merely flipping/mirroring a design or slightly changing a facade or plan element is enough to make a distinct design...
Typically there is only a copyright issue if you do something like use photocopies of the first architect's drawings as base drawings...

In practice this transferring of projects happens all the time and though it is sad and disappointing to lose a project most architects will allow smooth transfer of the project. I've picked up a few projects this way and have usually been able to get the original architect to even give me the CAD files if I write a nice request.
Often the original architect will write a letter to both client and new architect absolving himself of any liability due to oversights in his original drawings or changes/additions/deletions that occur on the project henceforth.

i don't think so. the original architect was hired for something and got paid for it and the goods he or she delivered is now in the possession of the client. he sold his vision for a price at that stage. does libeskind have any legal stand for wtc?

Technically the drawings, models, etc. are not goods - they're instruments of service - and they belong to the architect unless the contract stated otherwise. The client isn't supposed to make photocopies of the drawings, for example, without permission, if they're marked with a copyright. But that's an entirely separate issue from the transferring of the whole project from one architect to another...

I'm trying to think of a good analogy for what architects' drawings are, in terms of intellectual property.

The client owns the final product, i.e. the built work, but it seems to me that they don't own (or perhaps jointly own) the instruments of service.

It's sort of like owning an ipod, which i paid for, but not owning the plans to an ipod.

This is fairly common in the corporate retail work. A client will hire a "design" firm with a well respected name to work through SD & DD then take that over to production firms to mass produce the things through CD & CA phases. It's all clearly defined in the contracts and not a big deal.

Another example, of all the starchitect work around town I've yet to hear of a job where the big "name" had their crew do the CD's. It's always been a local firm doing the grunt work assembling the documents.

I don't know your situation but I wouldn't worry about it from an ethics standpoint. That's just how the architecture business works. Frankly I would guess a lot of archinecters wish to work in "design" firms over "full service" or "production" firms and could care less about leaving a project after the DD phase.

The arrangement where two firms--one design and one production--work on a project is fairly common and understood.

I thought we were discussing the case where either the client or the architect is fired, and then another architect is brought in without the first architect's input.

That, to me, seems like a tricky case. I worked for a firm in New York where the architect fired the client, they took their project to a former employee of said architect, and the architect sued the client for intellectual property. I left before I heard what happened with the case.

I hate when other people try and execute my vision, they always get it wrong. Hah hah that's as starchitecturally as I'll ever get. But it happens both ways and I've been on both sides of the coin, mostly the original designer but a few times the latter but its usually a pain because I try so hard to keep to the ethos of the original yet satisfy the brief...time is usually what runs away at that point

i JUST WANT TO KNOW DO WE HAVE THE SAME CLIENT???????

don't get too bent out of shape. architects do it to consultants as well. i used to build models for architects that brought on some great planning and landscape architecture consultants for their resort work. once the schematics were completed and approved by the client and agencies, the architects shopped the rest of the LA work out to a cheap local.

When I got the call about doing the CD's from the other architect's design sketches. My first thought was the client is trying to save money by finding someone, anyone who will do the needed work. When I asked about why the other architect wasn't doing them. I go the response that he wanted three times what he originally wanted to do the cd's.
I haven't seen these "design drawings" so I have no idea what they are. They could be napkin sketches.

I am less inclined to want to get involved ,when here they spent a lot of time with another architect. Usually means they are emotionally and financially drained. Or that they are a big pain in the ass

I am all for protecting the copyright of my work. Although, there are ways it gets abused. Possibly efforts around the country, to keep designs and drawing protected have gotten lax. I won't advise any client to make changes without a least consulting me first. After the building complete it's all theirs do what they want.

I hate when I see a bad copy or an obvious lokalike dstroy a great vision.
When the hount for spetacular looks mimic technikes that act as tapestry ,without the structural quality a lookalike is missing. When something is altered to make sure it at the same time , still hold the original idear's pover and yet is altered just enough to say, it is not that particular method.
The reson I hate it is that the real thing is being misused and lose partision, --- when a lookalike is missing the core qualities those that form the expression, then lookalike are a crime. When some old architect want to follow the young, and compleatly miss the point that it is the real ang genuine structure layout, that form the expression, and a clumpsy attemt result in dameage. Then I hate it -- I do not hate when someone realy understand 3dh and make a decent attemt and maybe do not realise, that inventing new structural systems also is a work of property, also is an intelectural property and a pice of design when it change architecture, is a vision about new way's to realise the build works --- please do it right when you copy, do not destroy the vision in your attemt to camoflage the origine , atleast pay that respect not to alter a great idea so you harm the original vision.

Studio43: I understand your hesitations. There are some reasons that a client might leave a first (and 2nd thru 10th) architect that would be red flags that you might be dealing with a difficult client, "bargain shopper" client, etc. If your gut tells you not to do this job then you should probably listen to it.

But I've picked up some decent projects that were originally another architect's. Some of them more or less adhered to the original concept and became just CD/CA projects, while others took some new turns design-wise and barely resembled the drawings that the client showed up with.
A client may leave an architect because the timeframe wasn't working (the architect has a backlog or is stalling or not meeting deadlines), or they just weren't clicking design-wise and/or personality-wise, or as in your case they can't come to an agreement on fees.
It really isn't usually too difficult to speak with the other architect, explain that you've been hired to pick up where he left off, and sometimes even to get CAD files, etc. As I said before, a lot of architects in this situation will write a letter to the client and the new architect basically washing their hands of responsibility for the project. But they'll usually be accommodating/non-hostile about the situation - because most of us have been on both sides of this.
The other architect should always be credited along with you if the project gets any recognition/publication/awards etc.

"nd not offense to those who think they are really creative, there isn't a design i haven't seen a variation of, or done before."

Very true , -- and when you get to the bottom of it, you are surprised how many "designs" of those stararchitects you can find build or projected in the 1920-40' . I will take it so far that of the past competition winners in this contry, I will be able to point to earlier designs in some 99 pct. of the cases.

Not much has happened realy, and today it is easy to become inspired ; you just use the web. find some fancy design and change a small detail.
But that is when we talk about "design" , about how a structure display , it become more difficult to justify , when we talk about basicly and stucturaly newthinking, when something realy has not been seen before, and an architect sudenly make a seven mile step into something he newer mentioned before, and display results that would ask years of preparing and documenting --- even vorse when a designer do so, and don'e even mention the obvious different structural and design aproach.

Two thoughts:

1. Whether we like the practice of switching architects or not, do we as creative professionals have the legal ability to halt our design or drawings going to another architect? i.e. can we legally prevent the transfer of design materials?

2. My office often takes on projects only because of the potential for earnings over the whole project, not just the SD phase, for instance. It's a pain in the ass to stop a project. But we've also had some incredibly unreasonable clients--they expect us to turn around design changes in a day and a half, they ask after week three why we're not ready to go in for permit, they fire us because we didn't have a permit-ready set in two months. And then they want to take our work to another architect, who has no idea what he/she is getting into. I often feel like the system is set up to give the client all the leverage. The one thing an architect has is ownership over his/her intellectual property.

In my experience this is usually a red-flag that the client is "difficult." However, some architects are better at dealing with certain clients than others, so it might work out.