Not too long ago we met with some potential single family home clients at BUILD. Good people, a nice project, and weā€™d be honored to work with them on their new home. Being a savvy couple, they had done a bit of homework on the design end of their project. A friend of a friend (of theirs), who is an architect, offered to draw up some basic plans pro-bono. Free work from a design professional! Great they thought -and who wouldnā€™t. They allowed the pro-bono work to proceed and were now talking to some additional professionals as a means of educating themselves and getting a second opinion. Smart.

As we reviewed these pro-bono drawings it began to dawn on us that this architect hadnā€™t done enough research at the city; they hadnā€™t gathered information on wetlands, steep slope, critical areas or any other obvious site characteristics. There was little documentation of setbacks, easements or topography on the site plan. The critical data hadnā€™t been figured out ā€“the critical data that dictates how the plot can be used and where things should be located. The drawings, it would seem, were at best ā€œartistic renderingsā€, or bluntly, fictitious.

Next, the architect led the clients to a builder who quoted a construction budget.Ā  The budget of course is fictitious because the design is fictitious.Ā  Magically, the budget defies all types of reason and was quoted at 50% under even the best construction pricing we could foresee.Ā  You can just hear the future change ordersā€¦
ā€œOh, weā€™re going to need pin-piles.Ā  Cha-ching.ā€
ā€œOh, thatā€™s living space? It looked like crawlspace when I priced it.Ā  Cha-ching.ā€
ā€œOh, you wanted windows?Ā  That wasnā€™t on the original (fictitious and sketchy) plans.ā€
ā€œOh, you wanted hardwood flooring?Ā  I quoted somebody elseā€™s (used) carpet.ā€
and on and onā€¦

Fortunately, the potential clients smelled something even as they were starting to get drawn in by the comprehensive ā€˜optimismā€™ of everyone involved.

Everyone typically loses in these situations. The pro-bono architect looks unprofessional for generating a fictitious design, the initial builder option looks dubious, the clients are unpleasantly surprised with a significantly higher construction cost and the architect who provides a factual design gets to be the bearer of bad news.

As much as we hate to pick on one particular incident, this one does a thorough job of illustrating the point. Architects shouldnā€™t work for free*. We see it again and again; architects who work for free initiate a series of problems that are crippling our profession. So to the architects out there designing houses or similar projects for free, hereā€™s our top 10 list of reasons to stop working for free:

There is a temptation, whether explicit or implicit, that if youā€™re providing free work you donā€™t need to provide as thorough a package as if you were being paid. But designing and building a house is a process governed by technicalities, building codes, and gravity.Ā  A thorough set of documents and proper coordination with the building department are necessary components, whether thereā€™s a design fee or not.

It misleads the homeowners. All they know is that a profession is working on the job ā€“this would imply that the work is thorough and reliable. They most likely arenā€™t aware of the fact that steps are being skipped or that the proper research isnā€™t being conducted. Why would they ā€“thereā€™s a professional working on it.

It trains homeowners to think that architects have more influence over pricing than they do. Creating fictitious plans that fictitious pricing is then based on gives homeowners the false impression that building a home is as cheap as the architect wants it to be. This couldnā€™t be further from the truth. Framing costs the same amount no matter how much your architect wants it to be. The drywaller has a mortgage to pay on his house just like anybody else and his bills donā€™t diminish when the architect would like a project to cost less.

Itā€™s just bad business. Ask any MBA about the business model of working for free and theyā€™ll most likely respond with ā€œwhat business model?ā€

 

It devalues the profession of architecture. Working for free suggests that you were that student back in school who sat on the couch in studio all day talking about all-nighters and how kick-ass that project is going to be that you havenā€™t yet started.

Itā€™s hard to take a professional seriously when they give their time away. If our eye surgeon offered free Lasik eye surgery to us, Iā€™m not sure weā€™d be too crazy about the idea. We kind of like handing over a nice big fat check to our eye surgeon. That check gives us the confidence that weā€™re going to get the things we need out of the deal ā€“like depth perception.

Itā€™s degrading. Nobody likes working for nothing.

 

It undermines accountability. In the event that there are errors or omissions with a set of drawings resulting in legal action, the architect is quite likely to claim that the damages cannot exceed the design fee, which in this case would be zero. Before you know it, that professional architect you knew transformed into a used car salesman complete with plaid suit.

Just because youā€™ve got ā€œfree timeā€ doesnā€™t mean you have time to give away. A down economy is no excuse for working for free. Itā€™s valuable time to be marketing, networking, blogging, and heck, we donā€™t know, maybe learning the building code.

It dishonors your other clients who paid good money for the design of their home.

There you go free-working, sitting on the couch in studio, architects. Weā€™d love to hear your top 10 reasons to work for free. Hell, weā€™ll even pay you for it.

*Disclaimer: of course, the caveat here is that structured and specific pro-bono work is encouraged for things like catastrophes, the less fortunate and orphans.Ā  But even these pro-bono services need to be delivered with the same professionalism as typical fee-based services.