So what is it exactly that you do? “Well I’m an architect” . Blank stare, “Oh that’s exiting”. More blank stares, and some muttering. You’d think that this statement would inspire more enthusiasm from people. But no, apparently beyond you design buildings right?
No one seems to have a clue what it is I do from eight to five, or why on earth they have to pay so much for the service.
Recently I had a brief discussion with an ex-client as to why after I’d already completed a significant amount of work on their project that sorry no they just thought R5000 was too much to pay for my having measured up and drawn their house plans because city council had lost the originals. Because and I quote “its too much to pay for a drawing”. As you can imagine,
“Well fine then.” Press end call. To put things mildly I was livid. More because this person was a lawyer, some one who bills in thousands of rand per hour, could not comprehend why I was changing this amount. The general feeling being what I do for a living is not valuable in their eyes as worthy of actually paying for.
Let me state out right, it’s not about drawings. Actually I give you an uneducated person the same task and I’d guarantee council would not pass your house. So no it’s not about the drawings, I did not study for 6 years in higher education to learn to draw. That’s I could do when I was five, but you don’t pay five year olds to draw up a house for you do you? Come on here people, I bring more than drawing to the table. I’ve studies as long as a doctor; surely there must be a reason why?
effectively and the whole building as the brain directing need and want, making sure everything works the way its supposed to. Designing a building is like designing a person , from scratch and making it look beautiful to boot.
I may consider in a renovation how to best maximise resale value on your house, in future. How to get the most benefit out of the least work. And then I begin to work on the system of how this building will function, how the systems will work best, where they are the most logical locations of various elements, what system you need in the foundation in order to support the roof. I look at how build able the project is in terms of who is available to build the project, what materials may be most accessible. I look at who the client is and bare in mind there may be other future client and uses you cannot imagine. And at the end of the day a year or two later, after many meeting and cross references to various other professionals who specialise in structural engineering, and air-conditioning and electrical ducting and construction, pluming, fixing. All this before we’ve even considered how it going to be finished all this hidden away stuff. You know nothing about, you never see except to turn on the tap or adjust the heating, I consult , on materials and colours and what handle is best on the front door. And at the end of the day you get a building beyond what you could imagine.
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