5 Tips for Working Virtually With Your Architect
Whether a home is big or small, building it comes with plenty of challenges, especially if you want to build in an area where navigating the design review board is difficult and time consuming. Working with a local architect can help your dream project take the path of least resistance. Your architect should have experience with projects similar to yours and have a good reputation with the local jurisdiction and design review board. This can help you save time and money getting your project approved.
But how do you work with a local architect if you're not living in the area you want to build? Thanks to all the resources in the modern architect's toolbox, this can be a lot easier than you might think.
Of course, nothing can replace real face time among you, your architect and a pencil and paper. The most productive meetings tend to involve live bodies brainstorming around sketches. The more your architect gets to know you and your lifestyle, the more likely it is that he or she will design your perfect home. These five tips can just help you stay in touch and keep the project moving when meeting in person isn't possible.
1. Go paperless. The days of getting piles of mail each month are long gone for most of us. Floor plans saved as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, sent via email, are a great way to view documents and save paper. It’s always a good idea to view the actual prints for major design approvals, but a lot of small design decisions and reviews can be handled by viewing design documents on your computer.
2. Share photos. We use Houzz with all of our clients as a forum for discussing concepts and finding visual references for every aspect of design. Being able to communicate with a client through images when we're far apart is invaluable.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and having a library of more than a million photos to search and share can save significant time when working with your architect no matter where she or he lives. Browse the Houzz photo library by room, style or search term to get inspired or find examples of what you're looking for. Create an ideabook and hit "Collaborate" to share it with your architect when discussing what you want for your home.
3. Try screen sharing. I recently finished a project here, in California, where my clients were comfortably sitting at home in Massachusetts for 95 percent of our meetings. These clients are extremely detailed; all the minutiae were methodically designed. We spent countless hours in virtual meetings doing screen sharing — I remotely viewed and took control over their Mac computer — which allowed them to carefully review every aspect of their project.
4. Set up virtual meetings. Communicating design intent over the phone is difficult. Seeing a mouse moving across the screen to point out what you need to see can make the process efficient and productive. Virtual meetings combine screen sharing, PDFs and a group phone call (conference call) with any number of attendees. Virtual meetings save on travel costs, allow you to communicate more effectively compared to regular phone calls, help complete projects more quickly, are low cost and and have less preparation time.
5. Consult with a local architect. Sometimes the best architect for the project isn't located near your build location. Instead of hiring a local architect for the whole project, you may want to ask him or her to collaborate during the design review and planning processes, and then let your primary architect take over.
This is very common on larger projects, particularly in areas with complicated planning approvals. Hiring a local architect in addition to your primary architect might seem like a waste at first, but it'll inevitably save you time and money in the long run.
Find architects where you want to build
Experience with design review boards probably isn't the first thing on your list of criteria when hiring a new architect or designer. But it's important to do your research and ask about the professional's experience. The last thing a design review board wants to do is hold up a project, but anyone who comes in again and again without all the necessary information is wasting the board's time and the homeowner's money.
How has tech helped you work with architects or clients? Please tell us in the Comments!
More: Find inspiration photos and start your own ideabook
