Architecture Firms
An architecture firm is the business that designs buildings and the spaces people live, work and gather in, and it is the unit in which the discipline is practiced commercially, from a 2 person studio that signs its own drawings to a global practice that delivers projects on several continents at once. The firm is where the architect's education, license and design skill are turned into built work, and it is where a client goes when a building needs to be designed.
This page explains what a firm is, the roles inside it, how it is organized, and how it differs from the design and engineering companies it works beside.
What an architecture firm does and how it is organized
An architecture firm does one core job: it takes a client's need and turns it into a set of drawings and documents that a builder can construct from. The work runs through a fixed sequence of phases, typically 7 of them, from the first meeting with the client through concept, design development, construction documents, bidding, and construction administration when the firm reviews the work on site. Inside the firm the people are organized by level and by specialty. A small firm of 10 people may have 1 principal, 2 senior architects, 5 project architects and 2 designers. A large firm of 500 may add departments for structure, building services, and project delivery, each with its own lead. The size of the firm changes the work, because a small studio's principal draws the building and a large firm's team of 15 builds it through a chain of handoffs.
The roles that make up a firm
Every architecture firm is built from the same short list of roles, and the table below gives the role, what it does, and where it sits in the chain of responsibility.
| Role | What it does | Typical count in a 50 person firm |
|---|---|---|
| Principal / partner | Owns the firm, wins the work, signs the drawings | 3 to 6 |
| Senior architect | Leads the design of a project end to end | 4 to 8 |
| Project architect | Runs one project's drawings and coordination | 8 to 15 |
| Architectural designer | Develops the concept and the detail drawings | 10 to 20 |
| Drafter / documenter | Produces the construction documents and revisions | 6 to 12 |
The chain matters because it is where a firm's quality is won or lost. The principal sets the standard, the senior architect holds the design intent, and the project architect and the designer carry it into the drawings. When the chain is short, as in a small studio, the intent survives intact. When it is long, as in a global firm, the intent can be diluted at each handoff, which is the main practical difference between the two kinds of firm.
How a firm is different from the companies it works with
Three companies are often confused on a building project, and the architecture firm is the one that designs the building itself. The structural engineer designs the frame that carries the building, the building services engineer designs the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems that make it liveable, and the general contractor builds it from the drawings. The architecture firm coordinates all 3, but it is the only one whose product is the building as a place to be, and that is why the firm, not the engineer or the contractor, is the party the client contracts with for the design. A design company, in the broader sense, may also do branding or interiors, and it is the architecture firm when the core product is the building and its spaces.
How a firm is chosen and paid
A client chooses an architecture firm on 3 things: the relevant experience in the kind of building being built, the fee, and the principal who will actually lead the work. Firms are paid in one of 3 ways. A percentage of construction cost, usually 6 to 12 percent for a new building, is the most common. A fixed fee for the defined scope is used when the cost of the work is hard to estimate in advance. An hourly rate is used for small jobs or for work outside the standard scope, and the typical billable rate for a project architect in a US market is 90 to 150 dollars an hour. The choice of fee changes the firm's incentives, because a percentage fee makes the firm's income grow with the building's cost, while a fixed fee makes it grow with the scope of the work.
How a firm stays accountable for what it builds
An architecture firm is accountable to the client for the design and to the public, through its license, for the safety of what it draws. The principal's signature on the construction documents is the legal statement that the firm stands behind them, and that signature is what separates a licensed firm from a design shop that only produces ideas. A firm that signs work it cannot stand behind risks its license, its insurance and its reputation, which is why the discipline regulates the firm as a unit and not just the individual architect. The firm is, in short, the professional home of the discipline, the place where the design of a building is made, signed and delivered, and where the client's idea and the builder's skill meet.