So I was just hoping to get some feedback on the following project breakdown for percentage of fees:
PD - 5%
SD - 15%
DD - 10%
CD - 50%
BN - 5%
CA - 15%
By PD I mean Pre-Design, and mostly site related concerns. Programming is already well defined by the client.
I know it is difficult to comment without some knowledge of the scope so lets say it is for a 3,600 s.f. mountain residence, two stories over a garage/half basement. Site utilities are already stubbed in 5 feet in from the property line.
Wilma Buttfit
Jul 21, 18 12:57 pm
I would put PD and SD together. CD's seems too high, DD seems too low.
thisisnotmyname
Jul 21, 18 1:13 pm
I'm with tintt. A distinct PD phase on a residence is usually not needed.
In my region, DD is customarily 20%, CD 40%.
Seth Bouman
Jul 22, 18 12:06 pm
Thanks for the feedback. I know the CA seemed a bit low to me, But as far as DD goes I have always found that a really good SD set can roll really smoothly into a DD set.
As for PD I think it can be rolled into SD but there are a lot of site specific design ideas to consider: views, solar orientation, driveway approach and HOA requirements.
What I am trying to do is determine a good way to pull out the PD & SD and do that part now and complete the rest in 3-5 years when the client is closer to retirement.
Erik Evens
Jul 22, 18 10:09 pm
Charging for CA on an hourly basis has been a game changer for us. We used to routinely over-facilitate in CA, and we'd get burned. Moving to hourly means we can't lose money.
Our breakdown is a bit unusual:
SD - 25%
DD - 37.5 %
CD - 37.5%
CA - hourly, with a budget of about 3% of the COW
Wood Guy
Jul 23, 18 9:20 am
My work is all residential, and almost all renovations. A couple of years ago I pulled PD out of SD and it has helped me estimate more accurately. (I charge hourly, but with estimates for each phase that I try hard to stay below.) PD is pretty easy to estimate accurately, but in my experience SD is all over the place. Then DD and CD are back to being predictable. CA varies for me, as I work with some builders who need (or want) little from me, some who need (and want) a lot of oversight, and some design/build projects. Anyway, here's the breakdown for a current $150K renovation, pretty typical for me:
PD 9%
SD 18%
DD 25%
CD 23%
CA 27%
Seth Bouman
Jul 23, 18 9:54 am
Erik and Wood Guy
Those numbers make me think that the DD package must be highly detailed with not a huge effort required to roll them into CDs.
Are the building systems (structural, MPE) all to about the same level as your architectural phases? or are those systems more heavily weighted towards CDS?
Wood Guy
Jul 23, 18 10:38 am
Seth, yes my completed DD sets are preliminary bid sets, with a first pass through pretty much everything, including basic structural and electrical plans, and sometimes schematic mechanical plans.
In CD I fully engineer the structure (either in-house or subbed out) and detail an electrical plan. Mechanicals vary depending on the project; for high performance projects I either do my own calcs or work with an engineer; for code-minimum projects the mechanical contractor usually designs their own system, for better or worse.
It gets a little confusing when drawing, as we'll actually start accruing CD hours while still in DD.
I feel like I should clarify--I do only residential work, usually nice but not super high end; I'm not licensed (legal for the projects I take on); I have a few drafting/design subs but mostly work alone. So my process may not match others'.
Rusty!
Jul 23, 18 10:15 am
Real life numbers shake out more like this:
Project Pursuit 60% (technically unbillable hours but you still gotta pay peeps)
SD 40% (if we do this really well then you will save so much time in other phases)
DD 1%
CD 1%
CA -2% (it has to add up to 100)
If everyone works 60+ hours then we somehow even break even. Magnets and miracles.
Wilma Buttfit
Jul 23, 18 10:23 am
Nailed it. Except it adds up to 104%.
Seth Bouman
Jul 23, 18 2:50 pm
Ha Ha. Nice you lose 2% on the CA right?
Wilma Buttfit
Jul 23, 18 3:16 pm
ah
mightyaa
Jul 23, 18 3:09 pm
I did it different.
Entitlement through DD was hourly (plus adding in contract negotiation).
By throwing planning & zoning in there, I’d explain I can’t control their reviews or what they’ll come back with and those drawings aren't reused in the CD set. With scoping & design, it is owner driven, so also outside my control on how much time that will take to get them what they want and puts them firmly in control of my time. Once complete, we could establish the real budget and negotiate with a GC to bring on-board to assist in costs and staying on budget.
3-5% of budget for the contract; architectural only. Bid plus 20% for any consultants needed.
Then out of that, 70% CD’s / 30% CA. The CD does account for really doing more design as well, which always happens. It is also front loaded on the CD phase since Owners sometimes cut the CA out.
By the final accounting, I normally pulled in about a 15% traditional fee structure (Arch + Struct + MEP) doing it like this and had proposals in line with what their golfing buddy told them to expect (3-5%). I also didn't have to cut corners to make it happen.
paolovolpis
Aug 26, 21 9:21 am
This unsolved dilemma that generates so many discussions is telling us just ONE simple thing:
THE OVERALL FEE IS TOO LOW.
As long as we all compete against each other by lowering our fees, we will always scratch our heads to figure this out with no true solution.
The worse attorney in town charges a mimimum of 350/hr, it seems that they all quietly agreed to it... if you do not want to pay that much, then you cannot hire anyone. On the other end we find great Architects who charge 100/hr and keep trying to figure out how to make it work. So stupid. We hold 10 years liability while Lawyers get paid even if they lose a case. Laughable. Architects require so much well rounded knowledge and problem solving skills that nobody is there to aknowledge or even thank you for; this happens because Architects are just TOO CHEAP. Majority of Architevts miss this simple business perception and instead spend their time bragging about their amazing philosophical design concepts, while wearing their Corbu glasses...just grow up, please. A typical customer who needs an Architect to build their home pays 280/hr for their car repair at Audi dealer but refuses to pay his Architect as much? Who is to blame? The mechanic? This is happening because there are way too many of us who spend their time trying to figure out how not to work for a buck an hour rather than learning how to sell services better and at a much higher price, ...if all of us would stick together...ironically like dummy Attorneys do. Speaking of which, can you win a case in court without an attorney? The Judge barely listens to you just because you do not have that "credential". On the other end most projects can obtain a Permit without an Architect and get built wirh a GC who is not required any continuing education.... Are AIA or any State Board of Architect complaining about this? Nah,... they rather self indulge having a small crowd listening to their incredible unbuilt project concepts while exhibiting the utpmost originality with the all black uniform and the coolest reading glasses from CVS.
Lets keep focussing on the CA fee %, for sure it will eventually resolve all the bigger problems...
Chad Miller
Aug 26, 21 9:33 am
Architects are not attorneys. Trying to compare fees between the two professions isn't applicable. I do agree that on projects under $10 million the typical fee breakdown appears to be too low.
paolovolpis
Aug 26, 21 12:07 pm
You miss the point.
tduds
Aug 26, 21 12:21 pm
I'd agree with paolo. I don't see why architects couldn't command fees similar to lawyers, other than the fact that we've ceded so much over the past half century,
and it's going to be a pain to reclaim that ground.
atelier nobody
Aug 26, 21 1:42 pm
In my experience, if we can get fees roughly close to the percentages of construction cost that used to be the AIA fee schedule before the antitrust case, and are still widely published in places like RS Means and various government agencies' fee schedules, then we can almost always manage projects profitably, while doing quality work also paying personnel fairly. While I'm ambivalent about whether the AIA having a fee schedule was or wasn't a good idea, the fact that so many of us took the antitrust case as an invitation to a race to the bottom is dismaying.
paolovolpis
Aug 26, 21 2:19 pm
Well said my friend!
rcz1001
Aug 26, 21 6:18 pm
The simple fact is, don't charge less than you are willing to get paid. That's the thing... what you are willing to get paid. Don't worry about the so called competition so much. All we can agree on is charge more. Do so, incrementally if you must but do it. There will always be low ballers but even they will go up with you.... who doesn't want to get paid more for their time? They might be willing to pack a little bit of "free" hours to sweeten the package and bundle of services offered for the client but the idea has to be within reason. Even lawyers that have $350 billed hourly rates which is rate of "Billed" hours not necessarily all the hours involved but you must thread the line of how much "freebie" hours you are willing to give to a client which we do in this profession but don't let it be all you're services. As a building designer, I'm charging a billed hourly rate of $160 per billed hour for building design services. Moving the fees up per billed hour allows me to still make a decent income even if I underestimated the hours when I do a flat fee or floating fee up to a GMP per contracted scope of work which would be based on billed rate times estimated number of hours. I can give more time to these projects and practically double or quadruple my estimated number of hours and still make a livable income. As the principal/owner of my building design business, it would give me plenty from a given project to put more into the service. Why race to the bottom just to get a project. There's stuff I just don't want or need to do.
How much you wish to charge is up to you and your market. How you allot the proportion of your fees to each phase is up to you. I would likely front-load some so that materials and supplies to do the phases would also be available early on and still not have so much money held up if the client decides to balk at paying and so forth.
Chad Miller
Aug 27, 21 9:59 am
paol - I didn't miss the point.
While I agree that we can be underpaid the fields of architects and lawyers are dramatically different in terms of demand, number of jobs, ect.
On a side note the average pay for an architect and lawyer are both about the same. The person in your example seems to be an outlier.
paolovolpis
Aug 27, 21 11:10 am
Address the demand that you mention please...
Chad Miller
Aug 27, 21 11:54 am
There is a higher demand for lawyers than architects. There are also more lawyers than architects in the US by a ratio of 7:1
rcz1001
Aug 27, 21 12:34 pm
Chad Miller is referencing supply & demand which is a big influence on price. However, lawyers are not all $350 an hour or higher.
However, in response to Chad, attorneys are less driven by the notion of lowering their price just because someone might price less than you. Since there is a parallel profession that competes with architects as well as builders that provides design services, it is possible that these influences lowers the overall price architects can charge in certain market sectors. But, the profession as a whole can agree that the race to the bottom by lowering prices into the ridiculous is not good for business and the profession and decide to charge more.
We can do this without violating the Sherman Act. How? We just independently decide to evaluate our fees and if the fees are not good for financial sustainability of the business, to increment the fees upwards instead of downwards.Ultimately, over time, the fees will be higher and we'll improve our business. How much each of us raise our prices would be independent decisions. There's no collusion or sufficient ground for such a claim for each of us would self-assess and decide on our own. It's not that any of us made an agreement to raise prices by a specific percentage amount.
This is a potentially good time for some to reassess the fees when re-opening up business. It may also be still a good time to make incremental increase in prices and do so. I evaluated that charging a pathetically low fee was not good for business and the pathetically low fee encourages the bottom of the barrel clientele and detracts from better clients which would perceive my quality to that low price.
SneakyPete
Aug 27, 21 4:33 pm
You keep using the word 'our.' I do not think it means what you think it means.
rcz1001
Aug 28, 21 1:03 pm
haha, I used the word 'our' only once in my above response and it would be grammatically correct with 'we' and I was referring to all of us who designs buildings for clients for remuneration and is in charge of establishing the fees we charge clients.
x-jla
Aug 28, 21 6:06 pm
Or, one could argue that architects have clung to an antiquated project delivery method. Designer led design-build is the way to increase fees and control. Don’t blame the GC for evolving.
rcz1001
Aug 28, 21 10:45 pm
Ugh..... factually, design-build is the original project delivery model for Architect and GC is one and the same in those days because an Architect is a builder/craftsman who with experience can lead multiple crafts trades, coordinate them and design the structure as a whole and communicate that across the crafts trades which were themselves teams that makes up the collective whole project team. It was only more recent in time last 500 years where we transitioned from design-build model to design-bid-build model of project delivery and in the last couple decades or so, see a revival of the design-build model.
paolovolpis
Aug 26, 21 12:14 pm
Attorneys do not lower their fees to get rhe job. Architects do. Compare level of training and responsibility.
Do we get paid if we fail?
What are our "real" recourses for failure of payment? You really think that the professional lien does?
When we talk about licensed professionals, we are all the same.
What about liability? That has a price too and insurance is not all it takes.
No comments about Permits obtained without Architect... curious to hear what you have to say about it.
atelier nobody
Aug 26, 21 1:49 pm
Architects are certainly not treated the same way as the other "capital P" Professionals (except K-12 teachers and social workers, who actually have it worse than we do) - we aren't even treated as well as a lot of "subprofessionals" like nurses and some paralegals and legal secretaries.
Sadly, our profession has brought this on ourselves.
paolovolpis
Aug 26, 21 2:17 pm
Is up to us to put the foot down.
So, rather than spending countless hours trying to figure out how to deliver at a low fee we do not stick together and set the standards for everything? Is our profession and we can set the rules for everyones benefit.
That math is much more interesting to me than what % of our fee should be allocated to CA...that will never solve the problem but instead is just another way to sink even deeper into it.
whistler
Aug 26, 21 5:23 pm
I think it depends on the project type. SF residential ( high end custom home ) require a lot of detailing and refined construction coordination with structural / mech / elec / interiors in CD.... Not so much in Commercial projects. I am finding that we are doing a ton more work in SD & DD for approvals of large commercial projects but then the CD is more modest. Bit more of a sliding scale but for the project type you have noted in the original post I don't think you are far off.
Miles Jaffe
Aug 27, 21 9:06 am
The Sherman Antitrust Act - intended to end monopolstic practices by corporations - has instead been applied to individuals (learned professionals) while giant monopolistic corporations (google, FB, ATT/VZ, cable companies, etc.) are exempt.
In other news congress announced that we have the very best government that money can buy.
paolovolpis
Aug 28, 21 4:58 pm
I think that the rrason that there is low ddmand for architects is very simple: going bsck to the attorneys comparison, nobody even dares to face a judge without an attorney knowing well tbat the chance it would be taken seriously is very, very slim. Lawyers have a huge leverage. On the other end about 90% of permits are received without an architect. Architects have close to zero leverage Here in CA pretty much all wood framed residential projects do not need an architect involvement. You need a GC for a vuation over 500 bucks but can get a 2M construction without an architect. As someone pointed out (and I quote that without double checking that info) there are way more attorneys than architects...and we still have less demand. Every project needs an engineer. Ironically architectd advertise to find the job and then hire the engineer who will work under the architect coordination. It is all upside down but we still have people that instead if seeing the problem at the root, keep up studying strategies to increase fees and still be less profitable than other prifessionals with the capital "P". The architect profession is seen as a priviledge as if architects were untrained jobless who got licensed studying for few weekends like RE agents who end up making more than architects. The unfirtunate part of all of this is that most architects are powerlessly accepting this as a curse that begun the moment that decided to choose this discipline.
greenlander1
Sep 4, 21 5:17 pm
What phases of a project do people think are most/ least profitable?
On a side note, one issue with overall profitability is architects don't itemize their work enough. Any sort of coordination (plan check, site visits, coordination with engineers ,etc) should be its own category.
Whenever I deal w engineers, they don't do shit except the drawings and are way less responsive than architects. Electrical engineers have it good.
atelier nobody
Sep 7, 21 1:41 pm
If a project is managed correctly it should be equally profitable in all phases. Second best would be a project that is least profitable (but still at least breaks even) in predesign & schematic, then becomes progressively more profitable - this would be less the result of good project management than good technical execution.
So I was just hoping to get some feedback on the following project breakdown for percentage of fees:
By PD I mean Pre-Design, and mostly site related concerns. Programming is already well defined by the client.
I know it is difficult to comment without some knowledge of the scope so lets say it is for a 3,600 s.f. mountain residence, two stories over a garage/half basement. Site utilities are already stubbed in 5 feet in from the property line.
I would put PD and SD together. CD's seems too high, DD seems too low.
I'm with tintt. A distinct PD phase on a residence is usually not needed.
In my region, DD is customarily 20%, CD 40%.
Thanks for the feedback. I know the CA seemed a bit low to me, But as far as DD goes I have always found that a really good SD set can roll really smoothly into a DD set.
As for PD I think it can be rolled into SD but there are a lot of site specific design ideas to consider: views, solar orientation, driveway approach and HOA requirements.
What I am trying to do is determine a good way to pull out the PD & SD and do that part now and complete the rest in 3-5 years when the client is closer to retirement.
Charging for CA on an hourly basis has been a game changer for us. We used to routinely over-facilitate in CA, and we'd get burned. Moving to hourly means we can't lose money.
Our breakdown is a bit unusual:
SD - 25%
DD - 37.5 %
CD - 37.5%
CA - hourly, with a budget of about 3% of the COW
My work is all residential, and almost all renovations. A couple of years ago I pulled PD out of SD and it has helped me estimate more accurately. (I charge hourly, but with estimates for each phase that I try hard to stay below.) PD is pretty easy to estimate accurately, but in my experience SD is all over the place. Then DD and CD are back to being predictable. CA varies for me, as I work with some builders who need (or want) little from me, some who need (and want) a lot of oversight, and some design/build projects. Anyway, here's the breakdown for a current $150K renovation, pretty typical for me:
PD 9%
SD 18%
DD 25%
CD 23%
CA 27%
Erik and Wood Guy
Those numbers make me think that the DD package must be highly detailed with not a huge effort required to roll them into CDs.
Are the building systems (structural, MPE) all to about the same level as your architectural phases? or are those systems more heavily weighted towards CDS?
Seth, yes my completed DD sets are preliminary bid sets, with a first pass through pretty much everything, including basic structural and electrical plans, and sometimes schematic mechanical plans.
In CD I fully engineer the structure (either in-house or subbed out) and detail an electrical plan. Mechanicals vary depending on the project; for high performance projects I either do my own calcs or work with an engineer; for code-minimum projects the mechanical contractor usually designs their own system, for better or worse.
It gets a little confusing when drawing, as we'll actually start accruing CD hours while still in DD.
I feel like I should clarify--I do only residential work, usually nice but not super high end; I'm not licensed (legal for the projects I take on); I have a few drafting/design subs but mostly work alone. So my process may not match others'.
Real life numbers shake out more like this:
Project Pursuit 60% (technically unbillable hours but you still gotta pay peeps)
SD 40% (if we do this really well then you will save so much time in other phases)
DD 1%
CD 1%
CA -2% (it has to add up to 100)
If everyone works 60+ hours then we somehow even break even. Magnets and miracles.
Nailed it. Except it adds up to 104%.
Ha Ha. Nice you lose 2% on the CA right?
ah
I did it different.
Entitlement through DD was hourly (plus adding in contract negotiation).
By throwing planning & zoning in there, I’d explain I can’t control their reviews or what they’ll come back with and those drawings aren't reused in the CD set. With scoping & design, it is owner driven, so also outside my control on how much time that will take to get them what they want and puts them firmly in control of my time. Once complete, we could establish the real budget and negotiate with a GC to bring on-board to assist in costs and staying on budget.
3-5% of budget for the contract; architectural only. Bid plus 20% for any consultants needed.
Then out of that, 70% CD’s / 30% CA. The CD does account for really doing more design as well, which always happens. It is also front loaded on the CD phase since Owners sometimes cut the CA out.
By the final accounting, I normally pulled in about a 15% traditional fee structure (Arch + Struct + MEP) doing it like this and had proposals in line with what their golfing buddy told them to expect (3-5%). I also didn't have to cut corners to make it happen.
This unsolved dilemma that generates so many discussions is telling us just ONE simple thing:
THE OVERALL FEE IS TOO LOW.
As long as we all compete against each other by lowering our fees, we will always scratch our heads to figure this out with no true solution.
The worse attorney in town charges a mimimum of 350/hr, it seems that they all quietly agreed to it... if you do not want to pay that much, then you cannot hire anyone. On the other end we find great Architects who charge 100/hr and keep trying to figure out how to make it work. So stupid.
We hold 10 years liability while Lawyers get paid even if they lose a case. Laughable.
Architects require so much well rounded knowledge and problem solving skills that nobody is there to aknowledge or even thank you for; this happens because Architects are just TOO CHEAP.
Majority of Architevts miss this simple business perception and instead spend their time bragging about their amazing philosophical design concepts, while wearing their Corbu glasses...just grow up, please.
A typical customer who needs an Architect to build their home pays 280/hr for their car repair at Audi dealer but refuses to pay his Architect as much? Who is to blame? The mechanic?
This is happening because there are way too many of us who spend their time trying to figure out how not to work for a buck an hour rather than learning how to sell services better and at a much higher price, ...if all of us would stick together...ironically like dummy Attorneys do.
Speaking of which, can you win a case in court without an attorney? The Judge barely listens to you just because you do not have that "credential".
On the other end most projects can obtain a Permit without an Architect and get built wirh a GC who is not required any continuing education....
Are AIA or any State Board of Architect complaining about this? Nah,... they rather self indulge having a small crowd listening to their incredible unbuilt project concepts while exhibiting the utpmost originality with the all black uniform and the coolest reading glasses from CVS.
Lets keep focussing on the CA fee %, for sure it will eventually resolve all the bigger problems...
Architects are not attorneys. Trying to compare fees between the two professions isn't applicable. I do agree that on projects under $10 million the typical fee breakdown appears to be too low.
You miss the point.
I'd agree with paolo. I don't see why architects couldn't command fees similar to lawyers, other than the fact that we've ceded so much over the past half century, and it's going to be a pain to reclaim that ground.
In my experience, if we can get fees roughly close to the percentages of construction cost that used to be the AIA fee schedule before the antitrust case, and are still widely published in places like RS Means and various government agencies' fee schedules, then we can almost always manage projects profitably, while doing quality work also paying personnel fairly. While I'm ambivalent about whether the AIA having a fee schedule was or wasn't a good idea, the fact that so many of us took the antitrust case as an invitation to a race to the bottom is dismaying.
Well said my friend!
The simple fact is, don't charge less than you are willing to get paid. That's the thing... what you are willing to get paid. Don't worry about the so called competition so much. All we can agree on is charge more. Do so, incrementally if you must but do it. There will always be low ballers but even they will go up with you.... who doesn't want to get paid more for their time? They might be willing to pack a little bit of "free" hours to sweeten the package and bundle of services offered for the client but the idea has to be within reason. Even lawyers that have $350 billed hourly rates which is rate of "Billed" hours not necessarily all the hours involved but you must thread the line of how much "freebie" hours you are willing to give to a client which we do in this profession but don't let it be all you're services. As a building designer, I'm charging a billed hourly rate of $160 per billed hour for building design services. Moving the fees up per billed hour allows me to still make a decent income even if I underestimated the hours when I do a flat fee or floating fee up to a GMP per contracted scope of work which would be based on billed rate times estimated number of hours. I can give more time to these projects and practically double or quadruple my estimated number of hours and still make a livable income. As the principal/owner of my building design business, it would give me plenty from a given project to put more into the service. Why race to the bottom just to get a project. There's stuff I just don't want or need to do.
How much you wish to charge is up to you and your market. How you allot the proportion of your fees to each phase is up to you. I would likely front-load some so that materials and supplies to do the phases would also be available early on and still not have so much money held up if the client decides to balk at paying and so forth.
paol - I didn't miss the point.
While I agree that we can be underpaid the fields of architects and lawyers are dramatically different in terms of demand, number of jobs, ect.
On a side note the average pay for an architect and lawyer are both about the same. The person in your example seems to be an outlier.
Address the demand that you mention please...
There is a higher demand for lawyers than architects. There are also more lawyers than architects in the US by a ratio of 7:1
Chad Miller is referencing supply & demand which is a big influence on price. However, lawyers are not all $350 an hour or higher.
However, in response to Chad, attorneys are less driven by the notion of lowering their price just because someone might price less than you. Since there is a parallel profession that competes with architects as well as builders that provides design services, it is possible that these influences lowers the overall price architects can charge in certain market sectors. But, the profession as a whole can agree that the race to the bottom by lowering prices into the ridiculous is not good for business and the profession and decide to charge more.
We can do this without violating the Sherman Act. How? We just independently decide to evaluate our fees and if the fees are not good for financial sustainability of the business, to increment the fees upwards instead of downwards.Ultimately, over time, the fees will be higher and we'll improve our business. How much each of us raise our prices would be independent decisions. There's no collusion or sufficient ground for such a claim for each of us would self-assess and decide on our own. It's not that any of us made an agreement to raise prices by a specific percentage amount.
This is a potentially good time for some to reassess the fees when re-opening up business. It may also be still a good time to make incremental increase in prices and do so. I evaluated that charging a pathetically low fee was not good for business and the pathetically low fee encourages the bottom of the barrel clientele and detracts from better clients which would perceive my quality to that low price.
You keep using the word 'our.' I do not think it means what you think it means.
haha, I used the word 'our' only once in my above response and it would be grammatically correct with 'we' and I was referring to all of us who designs buildings for clients for remuneration and is in charge of establishing the fees we charge clients.
Or, one could argue that architects have clung to an antiquated project delivery method. Designer led design-build is the way to increase fees and control. Don’t blame the GC for evolving.
Ugh..... factually, design-build is the original project delivery model for Architect and GC is one and the same in those days because an Architect is a builder/craftsman who with experience can lead multiple crafts trades, coordinate them and design the structure as a whole and communicate that across the crafts trades which were themselves teams that makes up the collective whole project team. It was only more recent in time last 500 years where we transitioned from design-build model to design-bid-build model of project delivery and in the last couple decades or so, see a revival of the design-build model.
Attorneys do not lower their fees to get rhe job. Architects do. Compare level of training and responsibility.
Do we get paid if we fail?
What are our "real" recourses for failure of payment? You really think that the professional lien does?
When we talk about licensed professionals, we are all the same.
What about liability? That has a price too and insurance is not all it takes.
No comments about Permits obtained without Architect... curious to hear what you have to say about it.
Architects are certainly not treated the same way as the other "capital P" Professionals (except K-12 teachers and social workers, who actually have it worse than we do) - we aren't even treated as well as a lot of "subprofessionals" like nurses and some paralegals and legal secretaries.
Sadly, our profession has brought this on ourselves.
Is up to us to put the foot down.
So, rather than spending countless hours trying to figure out how to deliver at a low fee we do not stick together and set the standards for everything? Is our profession and we can set the rules for everyones benefit.
That math is much more interesting to me than what % of our fee should be allocated to CA...that will never solve the problem but instead is just another way to sink even deeper into it.
I think it depends on the project type. SF residential ( high end custom home ) require a lot of detailing and refined construction coordination with structural / mech / elec / interiors in CD.... Not so much in Commercial projects. I am finding that we are doing a ton more work in SD & DD for approvals of large commercial projects but then the CD is more modest. Bit more of a sliding scale but for the project type you have noted in the original post I don't think you are far off.
The Sherman Antitrust Act - intended to end monopolstic practices by corporations - has instead been applied to individuals (learned professionals) while giant monopolistic corporations (google, FB, ATT/VZ, cable companies, etc.) are exempt.
In other news congress announced that we have the very best government that money can buy.
I think that the rrason that there is low ddmand for architects is very simple: going bsck to the attorneys comparison, nobody even dares to face a judge without an attorney knowing well tbat the chance it would be taken seriously is very, very slim. Lawyers have a huge leverage. On the other end about 90% of permits are received without an architect. Architects have close to zero leverage Here in CA pretty much all wood framed residential projects do not need an architect involvement. You need a GC for a vuation over 500 bucks but can get a 2M construction without an architect. As someone pointed out (and I quote that without double checking that info) there are way more attorneys than architects...and we still have less demand. Every project needs an engineer. Ironically architectd advertise to find the job and then hire the engineer who will work under the architect coordination. It is all upside down but we still have people that instead if seeing the problem at the root, keep up studying strategies to increase fees and still be less profitable than other prifessionals with the capital "P". The architect profession is seen as a priviledge as if architects were untrained jobless who got licensed studying for few weekends like RE agents who end up making more than architects. The unfirtunate part of all of this is that most architects are powerlessly accepting this as a curse that begun the moment that decided to choose this discipline.
What phases of a project do people think are most/ least profitable?
On a side note, one issue with overall profitability is architects don't itemize their work enough. Any sort of coordination (plan check, site visits, coordination with engineers ,etc) should be its own category.
Whenever I deal w engineers, they don't do shit except the drawings and are way less responsive than architects. Electrical engineers have it good.
If a project is managed correctly it should be equally profitable in all phases. Second best would be a project that is least profitable (but still at least breaks even) in predesign & schematic, then becomes progressively more profitable - this would be less the result of good project management than good technical execution.