I have always been questioned by people about what I do as an architect.
As I mentioned, in my previous blog, unlike Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother, most architects do not spend their time sitting in a bar, drinking all day long or hunting down their potential future wife or husband. Nor are we like Pritzker Architecture winner, Frank Gehry, where we would sit behind our desk, building funky models and speak in a different language.
As an architect, we can be involved from the start of a building project to the end. Below are just a few services which some are not aware that an architect can offer.
Feasibility Study
Depending on the size and type of development, it is always wise to complete a feasibility study before any design work begins. At BY Projects Architecture, we often suggest our clients complete a feasibility study to discover all risks, constraints and opportunities of a site to form an appropriate brief that is suitable to the client’s intention. This is a particularly important process for an investment project to ensure that it will be a profit building exercise.
Interior Design
It is a misconception that Architects just design the building and are not involved in interior design. Like the famous American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union”.
A building form and its interior design go hand in hand. As an architect, we are trained to come up with big ideas and also to pay attention to details.
At BY Projects Architecture, we not only aim to achieve our client’s needs and wishes but offering more innovative and unique ideas.
Contract Administration
Again, depending on the size and type of development, there will be a different procurement method and contract. People are often misled that a Project manager is better a contract administrator, but this could not be more wrong.
At BY Projects Architecture, we often use the Australian Building Industry Contract (ABIC) Simple Work Contract. Under this contract, we will be an impartial contract administrator who offers assistance to both the proprietor and the contractor.
Below is a list of some of the responsibilities for a contract administrator under the Simple Work Contract
- evaluate and process the builder’s progressive claims & issue progress certificates
- periodically visit the site and ensure that the construction works are conforming with the building contract documents
- provide assistance in assessing and evaluating variations
- provide the contractor with instructions, supplementary details and clarification of the contract documents when required
- adjust prime cost and provisional sums and other monetary sums
- instruct the contractor in regard to any incomplete work and rectification of any defects
- determine the practical & final completion and issue the notice of practical completion & final certificate
Howard Siow
M.Arch (MELB) Hons, RAIA
BY Projects Architecture
13/02/2019
