Chapter 6 of 12Part II: Choosing an Architect
By the interview stage, everyone on your list has a current license and work you like. The interview is where you find out how they would handle your project and whether you want to spend a year or more working with them. The California Architects Board publishes a list of questions for this meeting. This chapter groups them, adds a few specific to San Francisco and explains what a useful answer sounds like.
About the practice
- How long have you been in practice, and how do you keep current?
- How many people work at the firm, and who would work on my project day to day?
- What share of your work is projects like mine, and when did you last complete one?
- Do you carry insurance? What types, for how long and with what limits?
Listen for specifics. “Most of our work is additions to older houses in the western neighborhoods, and we finished two last year” is a better answer than “we do everything.”
About San Francisco review
- Will my project need neighborhood notice or a pre-application meeting, and how do you run those?
- Have any of your recent projects gone to a Discretionary Review hearing? What happened?
- Is my building likely to need historic review, and how would that change the design?
- How many rounds of plan review comments do you usually see at the Department of Building Inspection?
No one can promise a timeline, and you should be wary of anyone who does. A good answer explains the steps, where delays usually come from and what the architect does to reduce them. San Francisco Planning Review and the 30-Day Neighborhood Notice gives you the background to follow the conversation.
About services and fees
These questions come straight from the Board’s guide, and they are the ones most likely to prevent a dispute later:
- What services will you provide, and which are basic and which are extra?
- Are the engineers’ and other consultants’ fees included in your fee or separate?
- What additional costs, such as permit fees or time spent getting approvals, do you expect?
- Will you charge for redesign if bids come in over budget?
- Will there be extra charges for changes the building department or another agency requires?
- How do you price changes I request, or changes a contractor requests?
- Will you provide construction cost estimates?
The fee models behind these answers are explained in How Architects Charge: Fee Models, Phases and Extras.
About construction
- What do your construction observation services include? How often will you be on site?
- Will you help with bidding and choosing a contractor?
- How do you handle questions from the contractor and changes during construction?
About working together
- Can you meet my schedule?
- How do you prefer to communicate, and how quickly do you usually reply?
- How would we handle a disagreement?
Questions for their past clients
The Board suggests calling references and asking whether the architect kept to schedules and budgets, listened to concerns, worked well with the contractor, what problems came up and how they were resolved, and whether the client would hire them again. If you can, visit one of the finished projects. Seeing the stairs, light and storage in person tells you more than any photo.
What to bring to the interview
Bring your one-page brief, a few photos of the property and, if you have them, old plans or permit records. If the meeting is at your home, walk the architect through the parts of the house that will change and the view from the rear yard, since that is often where neighbors’ concerns start. Good architects will ask as many questions as you do. If a candidate talks mostly about their own portfolio and little about your house, note that.
It is fair to ask each candidate to describe, in a sentence or two, how they would approach your project. You are not asking for free design work, only for their first read. The differences between those answers are often more revealing than any portfolio.
Answers that deserve a follow-up
- A firm promise about how long Planning or permit review will take.
- “Everything is included” without a written list of services.
- Vague answers about who stamps the drawings.
- Reluctance to share references or past clients’ contact details.
Comparing candidates fairly
| After each interview, note | Candidate A | Candidate B | Candidate C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Understood the brief | |||
| Recent SF projects like mine | |||
| Clear on basic vs extra services | |||
| Plan for Planning and DBI review | |||
| Who does the work | |||
| References and site visit | |||
| How it felt to talk to them |
Fill the table the same evening, while details are fresh. The last row is not a joke: you will talk to this person about money, neighbors and mistakes for a long time.
Tip: Ask each candidate for a sample contract to take home. Reading it next to the list of required items in The Written Contract: What California Requires and What to Add shows a lot about how the practice works.
Once you have a favorite, the next part of the handbook deals with fees, the contract and the design itself, starting with How Architects Charge: Fee Models, Phases and Extras.