ᐅ Ending Collaboration with an Architect after Design Development (Stage 4) – What Next?

Hello, we planned our solid single-family house together with an architect (LF1- LF4). Unfortunately, we were not satisfied with the collaboration overall, so we decided to part ways after the successful building permit / planning permission application. Since we consider ourselves building novices, a separate tendering process for the trades with our own construction management is not an option for us, and we are leaning towards turnkey construction with a general contractor.

The building permit / planning permission is currently being processed by the building authority. Now we are quite unsure how to proceed with the next steps and how the cooperation with a general contractor will work if they are executing a house that they did not design themselves.

Does anyone have any tips for us?
What should we pay attention to, and which pitfalls should we avoid?
Has anyone had similar experiences and made a change after LF4?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Is it approved? The general contractor should continue with the plans... tricky.

At the moment, we are still submitting additional documents together with the architect because we did not receive an exemption. The permit / planning permission is therefore not yet fully approved. However, the collaboration will continue until the final approval is granted. The contract with the architect only covered the basic services phases 1-4. After approval, detailed design work will need to continue.

For which quality advantage did you initially want a house designed by an independent architect, but not have them supervise the construction afterward?

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The architect was originally planned to take on the construction management. However, during the initial project phases, it has become apparent that his working style and reliability do not support continuing the collaboration.

So, by hiring an independent architect instead of a general contractor’s draftsman, you have essentially only gained in design quality (or maybe not even that)?

In my opinion, detailed planning suffers significantly if it has to be done by someone different from the person who created the design. Even more reason why the execution planner should at least also be the site manager. Unfortunately, general contractor site managers have a different role and focus: not ensuring faithful execution of the design, but rather avoiding conflicts between the involved trades (so more about smoothing the workflow than quality assurance, which is only done as far as needed to avoid complaints). If the house design and building plot are not very special, the independent site manager is actually more important than the independent planner.

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/