Do You Really Need an Architect to Design Your Home?

No. Some homes can be designed and delivered very successfully without an architect.

If your brief is straightforward, the site presents few unusual challenges, you already have a clear idea of what you want and your main requirement is competent design development and documentation, there may be more efficient ways to proceed. A good building designer may be entirely appropriate. A builder with an experienced in-house design team can work very well, and a carefully resolved pre-designed home may suit your family and property extremely well.

An architect becomes more valuable when the difficult part of the project is working out what the home should actually be.

That distinction is important because the drawings are only the visible outcome of a much larger design process.

“I just need to get my plans drawn up”

A prospective client recently sent me a message containing a phrase I hear surprisingly often:

“I just need to get my plans drawn up.”

It captured a fairly common idea of what architects do. The client has the home worked out, and the architect's role is to turn those ideas into drawings that can eventually be approved and built.

Drawing is certainly part of the job. On the projects we undertake at Borland Architecture, a much larger part happens before and around those drawings.

A family may know they want four bedrooms, somewhere to work from home, more natural light, greater privacy and a better relationship with the garden. I still need to understand how they actually live, which parts of their current home frustrate them, what they want life in the new home to feel like and where their priorities sit when those ambitions start competing for space and budget.

The site brings another set of questions. Orientation, views, neighbouring buildings, planning controls, vegetation, slope, privacy, access and climate can all influence where the best opportunities lie.

Then we need to consider time. Children become teenagers and eventually adults. Working patterns change. Parents may need care. Mobility can change, and the building itself may serve entirely different people over its life.

The floor plans and elevations eventually record the decisions that emerge from that investigation.

Beautiful drawings cannot compensate for weak thinking at the beginning.

Sometimes a simpler process makes sense

There are plenty of projects where a highly bespoke architectural process may add limited value.

Consider a relatively straightforward suburban site, a conventional family brief, a clearly defined budget and a client who is comfortable working within an established construction system. A capable builder-led process can be highly effective in that situation. The builder already understands its construction methods, the designer is familiar with the system and cost feedback can happen quickly.

Pre-designed homes can also make sense.

If somebody has already invested substantial time resolving a good floor plan, construction system and specification, starting again from a blank page simply to create something unique may be difficult to justify. The real question is whether that particular design suits the site, climate, planning conditions and people who will live in it.

That thinking is one of the reasons we developed Stllhaus. Some clients want the benefits of a carefully considered architectural home while placing greater value on an established design, repeatable construction methodology and greater certainty around the process.

A building designer can also be an excellent choice. There are highly capable building designers producing thoughtful homes, just as an architectural qualification alone provides no guarantee that somebody will produce a great house.

I would look closely at the quality of the person's previous work, how they approach the brief, their understanding of building performance and construction, and whether their level of design involvement matches the complexity and ambition of your project.

Complexity is where architectural thinking becomes valuable

The value of deeper architectural involvement generally increases as more decisions start interacting with one another.

A site may have its best view to the west while useful solar orientation lies to the north. The place where the house would ideally sit might create a planning difficulty. The family may want generous spaces and a strong landscape connection while also wanting to control construction cost, energy consumption and the amount of house they will need to maintain.

Within the household, different needs may also compete. One person might work from home and require genuine acoustic privacy. Teenagers may want increasing independence. Grandparents may stay for weeks at a time. The family may entertain frequently while also wanting the house to feel calm and intimate when only two people are home.

Every decision starts influencing several others.

Moving a building can improve one part of the garden and change solar access somewhere else. Increasing glazing may strengthen a view and increase summer heat gain. Adding floor area can solve a planning problem inside the house while increasing construction cost and long-term maintenance.

The architect's role is to keep considering the whole home as those decisions develop.

A collection of individually reasonable decisions does not automatically produce a good house.

The brief itself needs careful work

One of the most valuable parts of residential design happens before we know exactly what the rooms should look like.

Clients understandably arrive with ideas about what they need. Four bedrooms. A study. Butler's pantry. Mudroom. Second living area. Guest room. Gym. Pool house.

I want to understand what each of those requests is intended to achieve.

A second living room might be about giving teenagers somewhere to spend time with friends. A guest room might exist because grandparents stay for several weeks every year. A large kitchen may be driven by a family that genuinely loves cooking together, while somebody else may simply have absorbed an expectation that an expensive home should have a very large kitchen.

Those distinctions have significant consequences because space is expensive.

Every additional square metre eventually requires foundations, structure, walls, windows, roofing, services, finishes, heating, cooling and maintenance. Before committing that money, I want to know what the space is going to contribute to the family's life.

Sometimes the answer will justify making the house larger. Sometimes understanding the real requirement allows one space to perform several roles much more successfully.

The quality of the brief has a direct influence on the quality of the design that follows.

A large house can still solve the wrong problems

Size and specification provide no guarantee that a house will work well.

A beautifully detailed kitchen can sit in the wrong part of the home. A 500-square-metre house can still have nowhere sensible for school bags, shoes and the everyday clutter of family life. Expensive glazing can frame a magnificent view while making a room uncomfortable during a summer afternoon.

It is possible to spend an enormous amount of money solving the wrong problems very well.

That is one reason I spend so much time trying to understand ordinary life. How does the family leave the house in the morning? Where does somebody go when they need quiet? What happens when friends arrive? Where do people naturally gather? How will the house feel when only one or two people are home?

Those questions can have more influence on the quality of the finished home than adding another expensive feature.

What should an architectural fee actually be buying?

Architectural fees on a substantial home are significant. Clients should expect substantial value in return.

I would look beyond the number of drawings produced.

The architect may identify an opportunity in the site that substantially improves the house. They may challenge an assumption that was leading the project in the wrong direction, identify a planning constraint before months of design work are invested, or find a way to achieve what the family wants using less floor area.

They may also help the client decide where spending more money is worthwhile.

Some of the most valuable outcomes are harder to put into a spreadsheet. The house may feel calm when everyone is home. Someone may be able to work privately without disconnecting from family life. Morning sun may reach the kitchen. Bedrooms may remain comfortable during difficult weather, and the plan may continue working as children leave home or mobility changes.

Those outcomes come from decisions.

The documentation records those decisions so they can be priced, approved and built accurately.

An architect should also challenge you

I think this is an important part of the service.

A client is entitled to arrive with strong ideas. It is their home, their money and their life.

My responsibility is to investigate those ideas properly. If I think a particular request is consuming a large amount of budget while contributing relatively little to the family's life, I should say so. If I see an opportunity that conflicts with something the client initially imagined, we should explore it.

The aim is to make the project better before decisions become expensive to reverse.

That does not require the architect to win every argument. The client may understand the trade-off and decide that something matters enormously to them. At that point we can invest in it deliberately.

A useful design process gives the client better decisions to make.

So, do you need an architect?

Start with the difficulty you are trying to solve.

If you already have a well-resolved design, a straightforward site and a delivery system that suits what you want to build, a good building designer, builder-led team or pre-designed home may be the most sensible route.

If the major challenge is understanding what your family really needs, finding the opportunities hidden in a complicated site, balancing competing ambitions and making a large number of interconnected decisions that will affect the next several decades of life in the home, an architect can add considerably more value.

By the time detailed drawings are being produced, I want to understand why the building sits where it does, how the family will use it, where the major compromises have been made, how the performance strategy works and whether the ambition remains credible against the budget.

At that point the drawings become worth producing because the decisions they record are worth building.

Considering how to approach your project?

Borland Architecture works with clients undertaking substantial new homes and renovations where the design challenge extends well beyond drawing a predetermined floor plan.

If you have a property or project in mind and are unsure what level of design involvement it requires, book a Home Clarity Call.