Working with an architect | Author: Architect and Interior Designer : Elmira Esfahani, M. Arch
Working with an Architect
Working with an architect is a very unique lifetime experience. Architect is uniquely equipped to manage your entire design project for you to see it through the whole construction process and ensure its success.
They get to this point through five years of university training, mandatory practical experience and a registration exam.
These steps add invaluable qualities to the design that you’ll receive from an Architect.
An expert creates designs that feel good and familiar and unique.
“Architects are more than just designers, they provide services that go far beyond drawings. ”
Australian Institute of Architecture
What we do?
At Fab Ideas, our architect Elmira is seeing the project in details and the whole at the same time. For her and us at Fab Ideas a design is like an amazing puzzle. The principal pieces are all the standards, legislation, law, etc. But the most important parts are the client, their needs, their vision, their feeling and their way of using the space.
Understanding all this is only possible by the knowledge and experience. That’s what we have. We have experience in Architecture and Interior Design within Australia and internationally. We have a passion for Creativity, plus Original thinking, Productive process and impact. All of these result in creating different at the same time unique for the users.
Moreover, excellent listing skill and creative thinking are our invaluable skills. As a result, all these skills and expertise enable us to accomplish our mission, “Creating Different”. We Create and design spaces in a way that is fresh, yet somehow familiar; in a way that feels right but that they could never have predicted.
What An Architect Can Do For You And Your Project
Working with an architect means working with a professional who can deliver creative spaces that are cost-effective also match both your style and needs. Creative thinking, highly developed problem solving skills, attention to detail and understanding of functional performance underpin everything an architect does.
Architects bring to the table:
Value for Money Well-designed homes with greater liveability and higher resale value.
Imagination Inventive designs built within the budget.
Peace of Mind Knowledge and expertise in the building process. From pre-design stage to project completion, an architect will be there each step of the way to help you maximise your investment.
An architect will guide you through:
Concept Design
Understanding your needs and helping you prepare a brief that is in line with your budget.
Design Development Translating vision by developing concepts that are cost-efficient and add value to your project.
Town Planning and Development Application Assisting in the preparation and submission of applications to local councils for approval.
Construct Documentation Processing building permits and overseeing documentations of other consultants.
Contractor Selection Helping in contract negotiations and the selection of reliable builders. Contract Administration Assessing the builder’s quality of work and compliance to agreed specifications.
Things you need to know, working with Architect
1. Choosing an Architect
Before engaging with an architect, make sure they are registered with the Architect Registration Board in your state or territory.
2. Design Brief
A design brief covers everything the architect needs to know about your project. It outlines essential details such as requirements, the desired function of the building or home, time-frame and budget.
3. Client & Architect Agreement
When you have selected an architect, it is important that both parties agree on the scope of the architecture services. The agreement should be in writing and should also include information on costs and other terms and conditions vital to the project.
4. Fees & Expenses
An architect’s fee is a matter of negotiation and may vary depending on the scale and complexity of the project.
5. Copyright:
Any design an architect imagines and creates is an ‘artistic work’ and protected under the Copyright Act.
When I engage an Architect to prepare a design for me, do I own the copyright?
Usually not. Even if you have discussed your ideas and requirements and asked the architect to draw up plans incorporating those ideas, the copyright owner will generally be the person who drew the plans. At most, someone giving instructions to an architect as to how plans should look, might make you a co-owner of copyright.
copyright does not protect the Ideas. It is the person who expresses those ideas in a particular material form who owns copyright in that particular work.
So, the architect in combining your ideas with others and taking them to the stage where they amount to a ‘work’, will usually own copyright unless there’s an agreement which says otherwise. The copyright can be assigned in writing and there are special provisions regarding works produced and under the direction of the Crown.
When I working with Architect, what rights do I have to reproduce the design, particularly in built form?
In nearly all cases, you would have an express or implied licence to build the building. Just once, on the land for which it designed for.
If the commission is for partial services and it is not your intention that the design to build. For example, a scheme to show a purchaser the potential on the land. If the copyright is not mentioned in the client architect agreement. It means there might not be an implied licence to build.
Issues may also arise where you have paid one builder or architect to design the plan and wish to employ another builder to build the house.