Seattle Homes and Lifestyles 2007 Source Book - Working With Pros: Architects

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GETTING STARTED
Choosing the right architect for your home-building or remodeling project is often the first step in a long journey

For some homeowners, planning to build a custom home or pursue a remodel is an experience akin to having a baby: fraught with excitement and filled with possibility. Working with a seasoned architect takes the edge off the stress and makes the magic happen. We talked to three Seattle pros to give you a sense of what to expect when you're expecting a new or improved home.

Photo by Michael Seidl/courtesy Curtis Gelotte Architects

Do Your Homework
Whether by word of mouth, a Web search or a trip to the American Institute of Architects resource center, identify a list of local architects who might be compatible with you based on personality, philosophy and process. Most clients meet three to six architects by phone and then decide whom to meet with in person, says Lane Williams, Coop 15 principal architect.

Get Acquainted
After you have interviewed a number of firms and selected one, the architect you hire will collect personal information to tailor design solutions to your lifestyle. Questions about eating preferences, entertaining or even babysitting the grandkids provide important insight. “We take that information and come back with a proposal that resolves all those issues,” says Jay Deguchi, partner with Suyama Peterson Deguchi.

(Re)consider Your Priorities
The challenge of matching concept and budget, and making the requisite compromises, is common to all projects. “We guide you through what your priorities really are and spend your money according to them,” says Curtis Gelotte, senior principal of Curtis Gelotte Architects in Kirkland. “That gives you a clear idea of what you are trying to accomplish. The clearer the target, the more likely you are to hit it.”

Assemble the Team
To achieve a seamless effect for the entire site, Deguchi suggests bringing interior designers and landscape architects on board as early as possible. Deguchi’s firm closely melds interiors with architecture. “We do a lot of coordinating the materials’ integrity with the design,” he says. “Often when [clients] bring in a designer at the very end, the objects feel placed with no regard to architecture.” Some architecture firms even provide interior-design services.

Deguchi, like many pros, prefers to include landscape architects in the design phase too. “So much of the work is about an interior-exterior connection,” he says.

Step by Step
Here are the steps of a typical project, from beginning of design to finished product, according to Coop 15’s Williams:

- First, the project goes through the schematic design phase, when architects establish the basic house plan and design concept. Then, during design development, ideas are fleshed out, and the architect specifies room dimensions, windows, siding and roofing.

- In the next phase, the architect assembles permit drawings for the building department, which can take six weeks or months, depending on the project’s size and complexity and the jurisdiction.

- While waiting for permits, the architect seeks contractor estimates and works on interior details for the kitchen, bathrooms, lighting design and finishes.

- When final drawings have been finished, the architect receives final contractor bids and construction starts. “As the architect, we are the owners’ representative during the construction; we are there on a regular basis to review the work and to assist the owner with any changes,” Williams says.

Photo by Michael Seidl/courtesy Curtis Gelotte Architects

CELEBRATE
As the project moves to completion, the architect walks through the house room by room with the contractor and often the owners, making a list of touch-ups and things to finish—the “punch list.” “Then you move in and say, ‘This feels like home, only better,’” Gelotte says.