OK so I'm not here to hate on architects who aren't with a firm. I hired one! But just sharing some caution from OUR experience.
If you are super confused on your search for an architect, you are not alone. It has taken me and Kody months to figure out what works best for us. So much frustration even to the point where I was seriously considering stock plans again, but then I snapped out of it because I knew that’s just not meant for me.
At first Kody and I were veering away from the big firms. When we were finding a list of architects to interview in our area, it was firms who were the ones with experience in modern/contemporary. The people that did architecture as a side job or their own firm as an individual, didn’t appear to be in our style or have the 3-D expertise. So we started to interview with these firms. However, we quickly changed course to avoiding them because of the cost. It was evident that working with a firm was a greater cost because they just have more overhead. But the firms definitely showed a great customer service culture.
Anyway, I guess I had started to envision myself just working hand-in-hand with a talented architect passing designs back-and-forth. That’s another reason why I ended up changing my thought process to avoid firms and work with a single architect.
What Kody and I quickly learned was that working with individual architects was nothing but a waste of time. They just didn’t have the customer focus and discipline in responsiveness that the firms had. We also found that it actually wasn’t saving money because using these individual architects, would require us to possibly hire a structural engineer consultant since they didn't have the expertise/staff of the larger firms.
So long story short, individual architects cost us more time, money, and headache than working with a firm. Going back to evaluating a firm we quickly found the cost was reasonable (for our particular selected firm), and we were able to trust their experience would get us the style that we wanted even if they didn’t do modern and contemporary for every single project. I was always fearful that a firm would be a less personal experience, but I quickly learned the responsiveness and customer-oriented mindset overruled any fear I had. There's just an overall different sense of accountability and professionalism than the single architects we've talked to.
I am not trying to stereotype all individual architects, but I'm just providing caution based off the ones WE'VE talked to. Good luck!!
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