Avoiding Architectural Creep

“So you’re an architect. Let me tell you about my experience with an architect. He knew my budget. We worked together for many months, countless meetings. He and his staff drew up the blueprints and what do you think? The bids were 20 percent over our budget. We lost months of time before the drawings were revised down to the budget and we lost all kinds of things that we really needed.”

Sound familiar? Perhaps, but in defense of my profession, let me say that such unfortunate experiences need not happen. Sometimes the architect is at fault. More often both the architect and the client could have avoided the situation by agreeing to both a fixed program and a budget before any design work was started. Most often the budget is the money available and the program is really more of a wish list. The two are often unrelated to each other, which inevitably leads to the situation described above.