Site: New House
After our horrid experiences with
first a Design-Build firm in 2010 and now an Architect in 2013, we had
no idea where to go for the design of the expansion (master suite and
Endless Pool) at our new house. Expending effort only to find a new
architect who would also back-burner our non-million-dollar project at
every opportunity was a non-starter. We had to get moving forward. But
how?
I decided to log in to Angie's List and poke
around for architect-types. Hmm. There's a highly rated firm with a ton
of reviews and it's in downtown Houston? Really? Where?
Reading the review, I realize they are not in downtown Houston, but offer design services over the web. Hmm. I read the reviews.
Some
people are unhappy with the business model, which is crowd-sourced
architecture/design set up as a competition. You, the client, put up a
monetary reward
with your design requirements and you set a due date. At that due date,
you judge (rank) the designs you receive based on how well they meet
your requirements and how well you like them. 1st place is awarded 60%
of the award money, 2nd gets 30%, and 3rd gets 10%. Then the results
become
public on the member's side of the website and everyone can see them. It's like hiring multiple designers to offer you solutions to the same issue because that is exactly what you are doing.
The satisfied customers give absolutely glowing reviews and explain that it requires substantial effort on your part, but you get out of it what you put into it.
These designers are from across the globe and rely on you to answer
questions about site measurements, things you might like, etc. We have
no problem with that.
I visit ArcBazar's website. There
are some very interesting projects on there, with some very creative
design solutions. I'm intrigued. I start visiting ArcBazar periodically,
really going through some of the projects to read over the design req
from the client, read the exchanges between the client and the
designers, and review the winning designs (as well as those that didn't
rank).
We watch for a couple of months and decide that
this is how we want to design the work to be done on our new house. Time
to write up our requirements. Hoo-boy. I spent several weeks working on
this in my spare time and then, last weekend, that is all either of us worked on.
We
posted our competition Monday night, with a deadline of 8 weeks (we
thought our project was too complicated to expect something sooner). As
of Friday morning, we have 10 designers signed up from 4 continents. The
site says that many designers won't sign up until near the very end of
the project, when they know they will have something to submit (as they
now get penalized in the points systems for signing up for a competition
but not submitting a design). Our first entrant was from Albania. We
now have 2 from Albania, 2 from US, and 1 each from Serbia &
Herzegovenia, France, Mexico, Georgia (Republic of), Morocco and
Nigeria. The general consensus is that 25-50% of the designers will
actually submit plans.
Yeah, we're pretty excited
about handling our design this way. The average number of designs you'll
get is 9, though I've seen a few competitions lately with upwards of 2
dozen designers.
Our competition posting
is available only to ArcBazar members, but signup to the site is free.
If you are interested, you can create an account and see what we have
requested. (If you do, let us know if you see anything that we missed!)
It's a neat place to browse around, too.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
To bring you up to date on the Old House
Site: Old House
Well. It’s been an… interesting… 3 months since the last update. In July, we hit a brick wall when the architectural firm we had hired went…completely unethical on us. The Architect had us working over July 4th holiday to get product selections together. Which we faithfully did, working ourselves hour after hour, missing holiday celebrations (and rest) to work on the house project and we got the selections in an Excel spreadsheet to The Architect on July 5th. Because, by golly, according to The Architect, we would be going to bid on July 8 or 9th at the latest and he needed this info for The Schedules. He had also invoiced us for The Drawings and we hand-delivered The Payment on July 5th to him along with our product selections. (Yeah, you can go ahead and say, “uh-oh” now.)
Then, there was this quiet, “oh, we need the structural engineer’s drawings yet” (The Architect’s responsibility, per The Contract, and we had informed him that we had received, signed, and paid the contract for the Structural Engineer on July 2) and we went home, still convinced we’d be contacting contractors on Monday (7/8) or Tuesday… or Friday at the latest to set up appointments to come see our project and then submit bids. By July 11, we had asked The Architect for the revised Electrical Drawings to review for the inevitable errors, and we found them. The page they sent us was still wrong. So we e-mailed our request for a full set of The Drawings to review. And we got…
Silence. We sent email. Left voice mail. Sent more email. Nothing. Nothing at all.
I ask Roy to call them near 5pm on 7/22, and The Assistant (who is not an Architect) answered and said that The Architect is out until 7/29, and had (ostensibly) said not to give us the plans. He didn’t know why.
Have I mentioned that we had confirmed that our check had been cashed on 7/11? By now, even Roy is disturbed by their behavior.
So, on Tuesday morning, 7/23, I called the Structural Engineer. The only set of drawings they have for our project is from 6/5. They don’t know if those are current, so can’t schedule a meeting with us, and they will call The Architect for a current set of The Drawings. So we wait.
On 7/29, we e-mail The Architect. Again. And state that the Structural Engineer still needs a current set of Drawings so that he can meet with us. The Assistant e-mails the drawings to the engineer and us. I don’t look at them until I get home at 7 that night. They are, of course, completely screwed up, with multiple layers on top of each other, which means doors conflicting with doors, opening opposite directions overlapping in the same opening, etc. Just a big, stinking pile of poo – you can’t tell what kind of opening it is or or how big it is or where it is located along the load-bearing walls for which the engineer will have to specify construction requirements to redistribute the load correctly. The kicker is that the Structural Engineer has an appointment with us for 8 AM The Following Morning.
I e-mail our displeasure and distress and dire need of accurate plans to The Architect and also leave a voice message. Nothing vulgar, not even any curse words, just obvious distress over the FUBAR’d plans and the impending arrival of the Structural Engineer the next morning, but of course it's evening, so we hear nothing. So we find the last version we have, from the end of June, and we use that copy during the on-site walk-through with the engineer and give that to him to work from.
Then we receive an offended e-mail from The Assistant telling us we need to act more professionally towards our design team…kid you not. They issue Drawings to a Structural Engineer that are so screwed up as to be unusable and we get taken to task for not being professional? (As a friend said to me, “I wasn’t aware there were professional homeowners.”) And, just in case you are wondering, no, we are given no apology for their screw-up.
It takes us ANOTHER MONTH to get Drawings that are correct and that we are satisfied with (The Architect isn’t in any hurry, as he has His Money from us). On the bright side, we did discover in the meantime a better hot water system, so we researched like crazy and changed that spec mid-August.
We were finally issued Construction Drawings on 8/27 (sans The Schedules, I might add - we wound up having to create every one of those ourselves). Then began the calling of contractors either we had used before or with whom friends or others had worked. None of them ever called us back. Too busy in the hot Houston market.
Over the Labor Day weekend, we went on Angie’s List and looked for contractors and found a highly reviewed one. It’s a family affair with 3 brothers and 35 full-time staff and they have used the same trade subs for 20 years. Right now, we are expecting a bid from him the first week of October and he would be able to begin work in November.
Since 8/27, we have heard nothing, NOTHING, from The Architect, who is supposed to be helping us locate contractors to get bids and help us evaluate those bids, etc. I personally put him out of my mind as he is a huge aggravation (and source of stress) to me. When I got home on 9/25, what should be at my place on the table but…An Invoice from The Architect wanting payment for “Completion of Bidding Phase”. Seriously.
No, we are most certainly NOT paying for a Phase that has not been completed! A letter to that effect, that his invoice is premature, will be mailed on Friday.
Roy doesn’t want to terminate the contract with The Architect, so we’re continuing on, but Roy will be responsible for all interactions with the Architect. Period. I want nothing to do with either The Architect or especially The Assistant. Ever again.
Someday, when we no longer have an open contract with The Architect, I will write reviews every place I can find on-line to write reviews. I expect better treatment from a fellow Rice grad, especially one who teaches a course on Building Your Dream Home through Rice’s Continuing Studies. It has been an unbelievably bad experience for a significant sum of money. We never would have hired him if I had seen even one review that outlined his business practices and attitude (poor and poorer).
Tomorrow, happier news: The New House Design Phase has begun!
Well. It’s been an… interesting… 3 months since the last update. In July, we hit a brick wall when the architectural firm we had hired went…completely unethical on us. The Architect had us working over July 4th holiday to get product selections together. Which we faithfully did, working ourselves hour after hour, missing holiday celebrations (and rest) to work on the house project and we got the selections in an Excel spreadsheet to The Architect on July 5th. Because, by golly, according to The Architect, we would be going to bid on July 8 or 9th at the latest and he needed this info for The Schedules. He had also invoiced us for The Drawings and we hand-delivered The Payment on July 5th to him along with our product selections. (Yeah, you can go ahead and say, “uh-oh” now.)
Then, there was this quiet, “oh, we need the structural engineer’s drawings yet” (The Architect’s responsibility, per The Contract, and we had informed him that we had received, signed, and paid the contract for the Structural Engineer on July 2) and we went home, still convinced we’d be contacting contractors on Monday (7/8) or Tuesday… or Friday at the latest to set up appointments to come see our project and then submit bids. By July 11, we had asked The Architect for the revised Electrical Drawings to review for the inevitable errors, and we found them. The page they sent us was still wrong. So we e-mailed our request for a full set of The Drawings to review. And we got…
Silence. We sent email. Left voice mail. Sent more email. Nothing. Nothing at all.
I ask Roy to call them near 5pm on 7/22, and The Assistant (who is not an Architect) answered and said that The Architect is out until 7/29, and had (ostensibly) said not to give us the plans. He didn’t know why.
Have I mentioned that we had confirmed that our check had been cashed on 7/11? By now, even Roy is disturbed by their behavior.
So, on Tuesday morning, 7/23, I called the Structural Engineer. The only set of drawings they have for our project is from 6/5. They don’t know if those are current, so can’t schedule a meeting with us, and they will call The Architect for a current set of The Drawings. So we wait.
On 7/29, we e-mail The Architect. Again. And state that the Structural Engineer still needs a current set of Drawings so that he can meet with us. The Assistant e-mails the drawings to the engineer and us. I don’t look at them until I get home at 7 that night. They are, of course, completely screwed up, with multiple layers on top of each other, which means doors conflicting with doors, opening opposite directions overlapping in the same opening, etc. Just a big, stinking pile of poo – you can’t tell what kind of opening it is or or how big it is or where it is located along the load-bearing walls for which the engineer will have to specify construction requirements to redistribute the load correctly. The kicker is that the Structural Engineer has an appointment with us for 8 AM The Following Morning.
I e-mail our displeasure and distress and dire need of accurate plans to The Architect and also leave a voice message. Nothing vulgar, not even any curse words, just obvious distress over the FUBAR’d plans and the impending arrival of the Structural Engineer the next morning, but of course it's evening, so we hear nothing. So we find the last version we have, from the end of June, and we use that copy during the on-site walk-through with the engineer and give that to him to work from.
Then we receive an offended e-mail from The Assistant telling us we need to act more professionally towards our design team…kid you not. They issue Drawings to a Structural Engineer that are so screwed up as to be unusable and we get taken to task for not being professional? (As a friend said to me, “I wasn’t aware there were professional homeowners.”) And, just in case you are wondering, no, we are given no apology for their screw-up.
It takes us ANOTHER MONTH to get Drawings that are correct and that we are satisfied with (The Architect isn’t in any hurry, as he has His Money from us). On the bright side, we did discover in the meantime a better hot water system, so we researched like crazy and changed that spec mid-August.
We were finally issued Construction Drawings on 8/27 (sans The Schedules, I might add - we wound up having to create every one of those ourselves). Then began the calling of contractors either we had used before or with whom friends or others had worked. None of them ever called us back. Too busy in the hot Houston market.
Over the Labor Day weekend, we went on Angie’s List and looked for contractors and found a highly reviewed one. It’s a family affair with 3 brothers and 35 full-time staff and they have used the same trade subs for 20 years. Right now, we are expecting a bid from him the first week of October and he would be able to begin work in November.
Since 8/27, we have heard nothing, NOTHING, from The Architect, who is supposed to be helping us locate contractors to get bids and help us evaluate those bids, etc. I personally put him out of my mind as he is a huge aggravation (and source of stress) to me. When I got home on 9/25, what should be at my place on the table but…An Invoice from The Architect wanting payment for “Completion of Bidding Phase”. Seriously.
No, we are most certainly NOT paying for a Phase that has not been completed! A letter to that effect, that his invoice is premature, will be mailed on Friday.
Roy doesn’t want to terminate the contract with The Architect, so we’re continuing on, but Roy will be responsible for all interactions with the Architect. Period. I want nothing to do with either The Architect or especially The Assistant. Ever again.
Someday, when we no longer have an open contract with The Architect, I will write reviews every place I can find on-line to write reviews. I expect better treatment from a fellow Rice grad, especially one who teaches a course on Building Your Dream Home through Rice’s Continuing Studies. It has been an unbelievably bad experience for a significant sum of money. We never would have hired him if I had seen even one review that outlined his business practices and attitude (poor and poorer).
Tomorrow, happier news: The New House Design Phase has begun!
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