Architect per sq. ft. fee?
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Is this normally how fees are charged? We've visited two architect's offices so far and it seems that they want their fee based directly on the square footage of the house, i.e. $15 p.s.f. Doesn't seem right for our purposes, we just want the structure and utilities, the rest we'll do ourselves. Someone else might want all the bells and whistles and get the same price.
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I have seen it that way. IMO $15 a s.f. is a bare bones fee for, say a 2,500 s.f. home. A decent Architect would charge at least 10% of construction cost.
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I have never seen this method used. I have seen a percentage based on estimated construction cost, which is updated periodically as the design becomes more refined, typically dropping somewhat, but not always. Of course, if you choose to define the scope of services- i.e. limiting or reducing- that changes things. It can increase the architect's liability if he does not stipulate where his risk stops, and both of you would need to agree on these limits. I do not know how to reduce my standard of care in the work I do, but this is not to imply that limitation of services will reduce that standard. If the architect is required to place his stamp on a full set of drawings, and he limits his involvement beyond a certain point he could be exposing himself to potential legal problems.
Maybe check construction costs per square foot in your region. That rate quoted might be considered as the value of full architectural services in some areas, but not in others. Custom architectural design of a residence is widely considered to be more labor intensive. Economy of scale is one factor. Almost the same design effort will go into a 2000 square foot box as a 200,000 square foot box. In general, the level of sophistication in the client will be a strong determinant in how well the project goes, especially in full scope design services.
I will stop here. -
not architect... home designer. $1.50 a square foot.
you won't get the detail and specs like an architect though. -
in my country that fee (square meters x certain price) is related to the cost of the structure calculation.
not the architect fee, which tends to be as honoluludesktop says, 10% of the cost of the construction of the building. -
Architects fees are usually based on a percentage of the construction cost - not always easy to define with some clients. Using a rate per square foot would seem to be a sound alternative to arrive at a base figure where the construction cost is indeterminate. True, not as accurate as a proper costing exercise, but good enough for a ball park figure.
Using a percentage figure is archaic these days and the RIBA no longer issue percentage fee scales. This makes sense in a time of volatile construction costs and serious competition - especially when clients faced with tenders that are too high expect the architect to do MORE work to REDUCE construction costs (and REDUCE their fee.) Much better to give proper consideration to the amount of work that will be required to complete the architectural design and to offer a lump sum fee.
Years ago, a major practice that I worked for did just this - we sat down and scheduled our work load for the project, including all of the staffing resources at the appropriate wage rates; totted up the cost, added a profit margin and contingency, and expressed this as a percentage figure in the fee bid rather than just giving the RIBA percentage scale figure.
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Thank you all for your perspectives. Another architect has offered services at 10% of cost. Will have to pay him a visit to see what services he offers as he is an individual, the p.s.f architect offers a wide variety of things including full project management. We'll need to balance cost vs. benefit and services required.
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