10 Good Questions to Interview Architects Before Hiring

In this article, we will cover things to ask an architect before hiring one. We will look into two cases:

1. hiring an architect when building a home
2. hiring an architect as an employee at an architectural company

My name is Mark Nichols, and I’m a licensed architect with over 12 years of experience in the states of California and Washington.

I’m also the principal architect and owner of MNichols Design based in Los Angeles, California.

I love all things design and talking about design, so I’m excited to share with you the knowledge I have gained from my years in the industry.

Ready to learn how to interview an architect and which questions will help get you the best professional to work with? Let’s dive in!

Designing and building a home is one of life’s major milestones.

It will be a large commitment of your time and resources, so you want to choose the ideal project team to execute your project exactly how you envision it, and choosing the right architect is instrumental to that.

Here are the top five questions to help you find a high-quality architect that is knowledgeable in your project type, will be responsive to your needs, and be the right fit for your project.

#1 How Many Years of Experience Do You Have in Residential Architecture?

Off of that initial question, there are some follow-up questions that you can ask, such as:

• Is there a project of yours in the past that is similar to our project?
• What relevant project experience do you have?
• In the past project of yours that is similar to our project, what do you think was successful about it?
• How did you meet the client’s needs?

These may seem like straightforward questions, but it’s important to understand that the architecture interviewee has relevant experience to your project.

Or if not, they can convince you that their skillset will be able to achieve the project that you’re envisioning.

If they have past examples of successful work, it’s a really good indicator that they are going to be able to deliver on your project.

What’s even better is, if you’ve gone through their website and you say, “Oh, I really like this project of theirs,” bring it up in your meeting with them.

This way you can start communicating your expectations for the style of architecture, the size of the home, and the overall aesthetic that you’re looking for.

It’s also important to know what they thought was successful in that project and how they interacted with the client in order to achieve the desired result.

Ultimately, this is your project and unless you are hiring a star architect where you want specifically their design vision and you completely trust them, which is rare, you are going to want the architect to listen to your input.

The architect will take everything that you’ve said — the aesthetic that you are going after, how many rooms you want, the overall size, the desired function of the home — and they will synthesize that into a beautiful design that you love.

That’s their role, but ultimately it’s something that’s tailored to you.

So, you need to be clear on how they have been able to do that successfully for past clients.

That shows they are able to listen to clients and take what they need into account and deliver on it.

Also, digging into their past projects will give you an idea if they can really produce something that you like.

#2 Do You Have Good Recommendations for the Other Team Members?

From that question, you can also ask, “Could you give us an idea of how much you think each consultant would cost and which consultants you think would be required?”

This question can then lead to follow-up questions such as, “Which consultants do you include in your scope of work, and which are excluded?”

This is important to bring up because you won’t just be hiring an architect but a whole team.

For most projects, you will also be hiring a structural engineer, maybe an interior designer, and depending on what state you live in, there might be energy code requirements where you would need someone to run an energy report for your design.

You might also have a civil engineer. You could even have an NEP consultant, landscape architect, and there are a few other consultants you might need as well.

Bringing this up will then give the architect the opportunity to discuss consultants that they like to work with.

It will also give them the opportunity to walk through what consultants they think are going to be required for your project.

For instance, any new construction, or even a remodel, that’s moving load bearing walls or has an addition of new floor area will require a structural engineer and structural calculations.

Talking to the architect about this will help you get an idea of what their anticipated fee might be and how long it might take for them to complete their work to have it ready to submit to permit.

The architect can also give great recommendations that are specific to your project.

For instance, if you are doing a remodel addition with a pool and new hardscape and landscape around it, it might make sense to bring on a landscape architect.

The architect likely has the landscape architects they like to work with, and they can go through the list of typical consultants and figure out which ones are both required and would be a nice benefit, even if not necessarily required by code.

#3 Do You Have a Recommended General Contractor?

For this question, you want to know if they have a general contractor in mind that they think would be an ideal fit for the project and would be someone that can work well with the whole team.

This could lead to follow-up questions like:

• Do you recommend getting one or more bids from general contractors?
• Do you typically approach the project as design build, or do you have a design build approach where you engage a general contractor early? If so, could we also interview your potential general contractor?

You might also ask:

• How do you and the general contractor get along?
• How is the project communication?
• What’s your working style?
• What’s your personality like when it comes to a project?

You can also ask similar questions for the general contractor. Additionally, here are good questions to ask a custom home builder before hiring them.

Question 3 brings up a very important part of the project, which is interacting with the general contractor or home builder.

The architect and the client can come up with the perfect design, but if they don’t have the right general contractor, it can all fall apart and quickly derail a great project.

So, as much as you want to interview the architect, you also want to make sure that they have a list of general contractors that they prefer working with and that they have achieved successful results with.

Watch out for architects that don’t have any recommendations for general contractors, or haven’t worked with many general contractors before because they might be bringing an unvetted general contractor to the table.

Hiring a great general contractor is just as important as hiring a great architect.

So, make sure to bring up with the architect how they will interact with the general contractor and what general contractors they are bringing to the table.

#4 Are Your Design Services All-Inclusive, or Are There Items that Are Considered Additional Services?

You can follow this up with:

• Do you consider renderings and video walkthroughs as an additional service that would be billed on top of the initial fee?
• Would more visits to the city or site visits or handling plan check corrections be considered additional services?
• What do you include in your scope of services, and what do you consider above and beyond and would be an extra fee?

With this question, it’s important to get an idea of exactly what the architect will be providing.

You should get at least three proposals or bids from different architects. You want to know what they provide and don’t provide when comparing.

This is because one architect might have a relatively low fee, but when you see the services that you are getting, and the amount of additional services fees that you might be paying, they probably will equal out to another architect that provides more all-inclusive design services.

Be wary of the architect with a really low fee. They have either not properly estimated the time it’s going to take on the project.

This means they will be less inclined to work on it the farther you get into it because they will likely not be making money on it.

They may also start charging lots of additional services for things that are a pretty standard scope of work for an architect.

You shouldn’t have to pay any additional fee for, for example, if there are multiple rounds of plan check or permit corrections.

You really shouldn’t have to pay for renderings or any sort of visualization because that’s the type of work that you need in order to make an informed decision about your design.

Also, you shouldn’t be paying for the architect’s travel expenses, like going back and forth with the city to get a permit.

That’s a necessary step an architect needs to make in order to get your project ready to be built.

So, any architect that’s putting those as additional services is probably a red flag, and shoot for the architect that includes those things but also has a reasonable fee.

In addition, you might also want to ask: Do you provide interior design as a scope of services, or is that also an outside consultant?

#5 How Frequently Will You Be Communicating with Us Throughout the Design?

Follow this up with:

• Will we have weekly meetings or bi-weekly meetings?
• Do you primarily like to communicate through email, text, or video (Zoom) meetings?
• What’s your preferred communication method?

This can lead to more follow-up questions like:

• How frequently are you communicating in design and how quickly are you moving through design?
• Do you have a general timeline for what the design and permitting will take?
• How long do you think the initial design will take? How long do you think permitting will take?
• From the start of when we hire you, how long until we can start construction?

This will help you get an idea of the overall project timeline and how quickly that architect would work.

If they quickly give you a month estimate, like, five or six months, you might want to dig into that and ask:

• How long will it take you to get through schematic design and when we have an initial design direction lockdown from the different design options we are trying out at the beginning of the project?

• How long from schematic design before other consultants like the structural engineer finish their structural drawings and calculations? Can we have a drawing set that’s ready to submit for permit review?

That wraps up the five questions to ask an architect about a project. Hopefully, you are now prepared to begin the interview process and start your design project.

When you’re hiring an architect or designer, you want to make sure they are the right fit for your company.

You also want to make sure they have the skillset that’s going to benefit your projects and help them succeed.

What to ask an architect before hiring them? Based on my experience running my own architectural company, MNichols Design, here are the five questions you should ask.

#1 Why Are You Applying for This Position?

For this question, you want to know what it is about your company that drew the potential architect or designer to it. What stood out for them? Why do they think it is the right fit for them?

That could lead to follow-up questions such as:

• Is there an alignment of values?
• Is there something about our design aesthetic, or something that we are currently doing that resonates with you?

This question is important because it gives the potential architect or applicant the opportunity to:

1. Identify the things that your firm does well.
2. Show how their values overlap with yours.
3. It’s also just a good quick vetting question to see that they have done the research on you and they really are interested in the company.

#2 What Do You Think Is the Quickest and Best Practice to Do a Particular Project?

Much of the practice of architecture revolves around producing different drawing sets. These can take a lot of time and usually require a bit of technical know-how.

There are various different programs that architects use. For instance, Revit is a very common one.

You might want to ask a question beyond just how many years of experience they have with this software.

Instead, here’s this potential task: say, you need to create a new elevation view and you want to put it on an elevation sheet. You want to make sure it matches company standards.

You can then ask the candidate: what do you think is the quickest and best practice to do this?

So, give a real-world prompt in which they can demonstrate their knowledge, not only of how to do the task, but how they might do it in a best practices setting.

For example, if particular templates are used, and that they would be aware of this, they can indicate that in their response.

Never ask questions that just allow them to simply restate what their resume states. You should have an idea of what their skill or experience level and professional background is based on.

The questions in the interview that you should bring up are ones that are going to dig into those skills and allow them the opportunity to demonstrate that they indeed have them, and if they are at an advanced level with those skills.

I’ve had this happen in past interviews where you take the potential employee to a computer and say, “Okay, here’s an example task. Show me how you would go about it.”

It’s a little more hands-on, but it’s a really good way of seeing if that person truly does have the design and technological skills that they say they have.

#3 How Would You Go About Resolving Potential Conflicts?

There are many design team members on a project, both within the company on the client side, and the general contractor side or consultant side. Sometimes all these parties don’t agree.

Ask that potential employee how they would go about resolving conflicts that may happen while doing a project.

Follow up this with:

• How would you try to uphold something that you thought was a valuable portion of the design when a general contractor might be pushing against it or a client may not be convinced?

• How would you handle it if the client or general contractor just won’t accept the design as you or the design company would prefer it?

• What are the steps forward to reconcile those differences?

#4 How Do You Stay Ahead of Current Trends in Design?

Ask if they research new technologies to keep pace with current design trends.

For instance, artificial intelligence is very much a buzzword right now in lots of different fields, but especially architecture and design.

Ask the candidate:

• Are they familiar with this new design technology?
• How do they incorporate it into their daily workflow?
• What are some of the things they can do to make sure they are staying current and efficient in leveraging the many different tools that are available to architects?

I think this is a good question to ask because there’s a tendency for architects to get complacent, especially the older they get.

So, they sort of learn their tricks that are specific to their time. Sometimes they don’t evolve past it, which can limit what they can do

That means an older TAR architect really can only do a sort of concept to schematic design because they don’t even know the software to make a 3D model, let alone AutoCAD.

So, really, they are relegated to sketches and there is no practice with hand drafts anymore. That’s very much a unicorn nowadays.

Understanding that the potential employee pushes himself to continue learning will be valuable so that their skillset doesn’t become stagnant, and they’ll continue to be an asset to your company.

#5 What Type of Design Do You Want to Produce?

You can follow this up with:

• What type of architecture do you think is worth your time and that you want to see built in the world?
• Do you think this particular company or firm can also produce that?

I would then take this opportunity to have the potential employee present their portfolio or work samples that they probably brought with them.

They can show projects they have worked on and how they might compare to similar projects that your company has completed in the past.

There is probably a good opportunity to see overlap of design styles and design values at this point in time.

And, it’s also important to get to know the employee, not just as someone that’s going to produce drawing sets or do different tasks but as a fellow designer.

Ultimately, you’re hiring them for their unique design vision and for how they can benefit your firm in a collaborative way.

And that it’s an accumulation of designers with different design ideas that ultimately will produce the best designs. Not just a few people doing design just to implement their vision through busy work.

You want to make sure you’re not just hiring someone purely for the task, but hiring an all-around designer that’s going to be able to grow and bring value to your firm or company as they get more experience there.

That concludes the five questions to ask your potential architect during an interview.

Hopefully this gives you a better insight into questions you can bring up to really get a sense of the candidate’s skill set and technological know-how.

Let these questions guide you as well when wanting to know how their values align with your firm’s values and how well you think they’re going to progress at your company.

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About the Author

Mark Nichols is an architect and founder of MNichols Design based in Los Angeles, California. He has over ten years of experience as an architect specializing in green/sustainable design and high-end custom home design, single family, mixed-use multi-family, and commercial projects.

Mark has worked on projects in both Washington State and California, and his designs have been featured in the YouTube videos of Thrive ADU Homes and Garage Talks.

Mark holds a license from the Green Building Certification Institute. He is a member of Architects Without Borders, Seattle Chapter which comes up with the schematic design and marketing set for a master plan of several educational facilities in Haiti.