The problem
A question worth asking before you build.
Everyone who builds it understands one part. Nobody signed for the whole. This is how that gap becomes expensive, and why it is easiest to close before you commit.
Pause, and ask yourself
Wait. Who is in charge of the whole project?
Everyone who builds it understands one part: their job. Each professional may perfectly understand the part they were hired to deliver. Read the agreements. Each one ends at the edge of that part.
Architect
Form, space and design intent.
- Signs for
- The design intent, the drawings and code compliance.
- Ends at
- What actually gets built, and what it costs.
Engineers
Spans, loads and the systems that hold.
- Signs for
- The structural system and the loads it carries.
- Ends at
- Finishes, sequencing and the schedule.
Landscape & hardscape
Grading, drainage, planting and the ground you walk on.
- Signs for
- Grading, drainage and the planting plan.
- Ends at
- How it meets the architecture and the lighting.
General contractor
Price, sequence and the work in their own scope.
- Signs for
- The price quoted and the work in their scope.
- Ends at
- Everything the others assumed someone else would do.
Sub-contractors
HVAC, plumbers, electricians, carpenters. One trade, one line item, one narrow slice of the build.
- Signs for
- Their own trade, to their own contract and schedule.
- Ends at
- Anything outside their line item, and how it meets the rest.
Everyone else
Who wants a piece of your project. Each with something to sell, install or service.
- Signs for
- Whatever they can sell, install or service.
- Ends at
- The part that overlaps everyone else's.
There is no line in any of them making one person responsible for all those parts arriving at the same house.
Experience changes the conversation
What do professionals do differently?
You will build this house once. The other side does it every day. Capability is not the issue. Repetition is. So you look for someone to fill the empty chair.
You will do this once. They do it every week. They know which questions come up late. You are learning the process while running the rest of your life.
Your options
Who should take this on?
There are reasonable choices. The question is who has the time, experience and responsibility to look after the whole.
- 01
Do it yourself
You are more than capable. It will also take the one thing you have least of: time, while you learn the process across the table from people who repeat it every week.
- 02
Ask the architect
Then the person coordinating the work is one of the people being coordinated, and every question about the design is answered by its author.
- 03
Hire a project manager
Ask what happens to the fee if construction costs grow, and whether that company also sells design, construction, materials or trades.
- 04
Give it to your own team
They may read a contract better than anyone. They may not know whether the technical answer a consultant just gave is the right one.
The conclusion
What are you actually looking for?
Construction judgment. Interests aligned with yours. Responsibility for following the whole project, not just one part.
- 01
Someone who is only yours.
- 02
Someone who knows construction from the inside.
- 03
Someone with nothing to sell you.
- 04
Someone paid the same when costs rise.
- 05
Someone across the whole project, not one discipline.
- 06
Someone who brings you only what genuinely needs you.