How to choose an architect?

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babydays

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After lots of renovation of our 1970s higgledy piggledy house (with strange extensions) we're finally coming to the conclusion that we should get an architect to look at our house as a whole and come up with suggestions on how to best use the space in it and how to maximise light plus some sort of extension (over garage or over existing back extension or replace untility room, loo, outdoors passage etc downstairs?). We're probably unhelpfully vague about what we want....we're looking for ideas....

A colleague had an architect that he was v. happy with but he thinks that as she is city centre based and we live far out of town that we'd be better off looking for someone in our own locality.

Basically, we're wondering how to enlist an architect. What should we be looking for? How do you rate one if not by personal recommendation?

Any advice on how to go about this would be gratefully received.
 
As anyone can call themselves an architect in this country it is best to tread carefully as mentioned in this post.

If you run the search option you may find some further advice/recommendations.
 
Why not request a listing from RIAI, Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. All members must fulfill strict professional criteria.

They also publish 2 very good magazines on a Quarterly basis (?):

HOUSE and ARCHITECTURE IRELAND.

Both are high quality reference material for interiors, exteriors, construction (more design).

Available from good newsagents etc.
 
babydays said:
How do you rate one if not by personal recommendation? .
Click to expand...

1. by personal recommendation..... first and foremost
2. by visiting previous projects , similar to brief as possible.
3. by meeting the architect and having initial 'feeling out' conversations... like anything in life some personalities clash and some work very well. Any building project should be a project to be worked on by both architect and client closely together.
4. by professional accrediation. This shows a standard that had to be met to join such a group, but dont let this be a pivotal issue. Plenty of good architects are not members of RIAI, and plenty of RIAI members are not good architects.

you should find some good advice here:
[broken link removed]
 
We had a similar problem when looking for an architect to work with on our plans for our new house. We had been working with a guy for site plans and pre-planning stuff for quite a while - but were not getting any vibes from him that would entice us to engage with him on the design phase (lovely guy though!!). I also spoke to a couple of others over the phone and all seemed to be willing - but really gave me the impression that we needed to tell them exactly what we wanted and they'd 'draw' it - iykwim. Like you, we were vague and needed enlightening and suggestions from professionals. We eventually contacted an architect who i knew from years ago and whose work we could see in the locality - a couple of interesting houses that seemed to tick the boxes. As it turned out, she couldn't take on the full project - but she met with us for a couple of hours a couple of times, asked loads of questions and let us rabbit on and took loads of notes and 3 weeks later came back with a couple of designs which blew us away!! We decided on final design after some tweaking and handed this over to our architect to draw. Some things needed slight alterations in the actual plans but we've just moved into the house that she drew on paper over 2 years ago and we're delighted with it!! So my advice - personal recommendation and failing that, look around for similar properties and you'll know when you talk to the architect if you're on the same page which is the most important thing!! Also - try to give an indication of budget so you don't fall in love with a design that is going to cost an arm and a leg!! Good luck!!
 
thanks, some great suggestions there.
Sydthebeat, thanks for the link - some useful points there.

I think I'll start with RIAI listing and see who's in our area. Another possibility is knocking on the door of a neighbourhood house which had some interesting things done to it recently!

Ana14, that sounds precisely what we need actually. We're not really expecting to get work done this year but would love to talk to an architect (as you described) get some options for designs and then think long and hard about it. We'd really envisage starting work in 3-5 years (!) but really want to get planning and budgeting now for it.

There's some work that has to get done in the house soon so want to see those works in the large scale of things.
 
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