Whether your house is big or little, building it includes plenty of challenges, particularly in the event that you would like to build in a region where surfing the design review board is difficult and time consuming. Dealing with a local architect can help your dream project take the course of least resistance. Your architect should have experience with projects similar to yours and have a good standing with the local authority and design review board. This can help you to save money and time getting your project approved.
However, how can you work with a local architect if you are not living in the area that you would like to build? Due to all the tools in today’s architect’s toolbox, this is sometimes much simpler than you might think.
Of course, nothing can substitute real face time among you, your architect and a paper and pencil. The most effective meetings tend to involve live bodies brainstorming around sketches. The more your architect has to know you and your way of life, the more probable it is he or she’ll design your ideal home. These five tips will just help you remain in touch and keep the project going when meeting in person is not possible.
Dylan Chappell Architects
1. Go paperless. The days of having heaps of email each month are long gone for the majority of us. Floor plans saved as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, sent via email, are a fantastic way to see files and help save paper. It is almost always a good idea to view the actual prints to get important design characteristics, but a lot of little design choices and testimonials can be handled by seeing design files on your computer.
Radius Architectural Millwork Ltd..
2. Share photographs. We use with all our customers as a forum for discussing theories and finding visual references for every aspect of design. Having the ability to communicate with a customer through images when we’re far apart is invaluable.
A picture is worth a million words, and using a library of more than a million photographs to search and share can save substantial time when working with your architect no matter where she or he resides. Read the photograph library by room, style or search term to get motivated or find examples of everything you’re searching for. Make an ideabook and reach “Collaborate” to share it with your architect when talking what you need for your home.
Taylor Lombardo Architects
3. Try screen sharing. I recently finished a project here, in California, where my customers were comfortably sitting at home in Massachusetts to get 95 percent of our meetings. These customers are really detailed; all the minutiae were methodically designed. We spent countless hours in virtual meetings doing screen sharing — I seen and took control over their Mac computer — that enabled them to review each aspect of their project.
AMS Landscape Design Studios, Inc..
4. Set up. Communication design intent over the telephone is difficult. Viewing a mouse moving across the screen to point out everything you want to see can make the process efficient and effective. Virtual meetings combine screen sharing, PDFs along with a group phone call (conference telephone) with any number of attendees. Virtual meetings save on travel costs, permit you to communicate more efficiently in comparison with regular telephone calls, help finish projects faster, are reduced cost and also have less prep time.
Bruce Wright
5. Consult with a local architect. Sometimes the best architect for your project is not located close to your build location. Instead of hiring a local architect for the whole project, you might want to ask her or him to collaborate through the plan review and planning processes, allow your primary architect shoot over.
This is quite common on bigger projects, particularly in areas having complicated planning approvals. Employing a local architect along with your primary architect might look like a waste at first, but it’ll inevitably help save you money and time in the long run.
Find architects where you want to Construct
Ana Williamson Architect
Experience with design review boards probably is not the first thing on your set of criteria when hiring a brand new architect or designer. But it’s crucial that you do your research and ask about the professional’s expertise. The very last thing a design review board wants to do is hold up a project, but anybody who comes again and again without all the crucial information is squandering the board’s time and the homeowner’s cash.
Cornerstone Architects
How has tech helped you work with architects or customers? Please tell us!
More: Discover inspiration photographs and Begin your own ideabook