Bill and Sue have been living with the same miserable, cramped kitchen for years. They bump into each other all the time when they’re both trying to tackle different parts of meal preparation. There’s no way they can have a conversation with guests while cooking, and so they feel cut off from where the real action is. Can they find the solution to this problem on their own? Could they not simply call in a kitchen designer to reposition the cabinets and appliances? They could, and both these paths may be good preliminary steps. But to get at the heart of the matter, really, to start the ball rolling, to get an appreciation of all the possibilities, an architect is critical.

The architect, when doing a good job, will ask a lot of questions, will try to determine what the client wants to get out of the project. If it’s a closer connection between the hosts preparing the meal and their guests, then it’s important to know this from the outset. This awareness enables the architect to come back with a slew of sketches, all of which will be a different way of addressing the same issue – how to make the space work better for Bill and Sue, how to place them where the action is. Some of the range of possibilities will cover breaking out of the existing space and building an addition, or stealing space from an under-utilized portion of the existing house, or simply better utilizing the space that’s already there.

In summary, here are a couple of guidelines:

• As soon as you get into complex problems, questions about moving walls, reconfiguring existing space, creating a design for a completely new structure (a blank slate, so to speak) you need an architect.
• An untrained eye may be able to suggest ideas, and that can be an important first step leading up to a design. But a good architect has the experience to draw from to show you more than one potential solution. Having preliminary sketches on the table becomes the raw material for deeper discussions between architect and client, which will then lead to a final and well-informed, and in the long run, cost-saving design.

If you believe an architect is important, then how do you make the right selection? See “Choosing the Right Architect for You" to follow in the next installment of this series.

This is Volume 1, No.1 of the
John Altobello Architecture and Restoration article series

Do You Need An Architect?
How do you know if an architect is a necessary component to the residential design project you’re contemplating?