Choosing an Architect: What Should the Owner Be Listening For?

The portfolio shows what the firm has designed. The interview should tell you how the team will work on your project.

Originally published March 2012. Updated October 2026.

An architect comes into the interview with a strong portfolio, relevant projects and an experienced team.

That gets my attention.

It doesn’t make the selection.

Owners sometimes put enormous weight on whether a firm has designed exactly the same type of project before. Relevant experience matters, but experience alone doesn’t tell me how the architect will work with the owner, coordinate the design team or respond when the project becomes difficult.

I want to hear how they think.

And I want to know who I’m actually hiring.

Who Is Actually Going to Work on My Project?

The firm may have extraordinary credentials.

Who will be doing the work?

I want to understand who will lead the project day to day, who will be responsible for the design, who will coordinate the consultants and who will be involved when an important decision needs to be made.

That doesn’t mean every senior person presented in an interview needs to attend every meeting.

It does mean the owner should understand the team being proposed and the roles those people will actually perform.

The relationship may last for years. Select the people, not just the logo on the presentation.

Are They Listening Before They Start Designing?

An architect needs to bring ideas to the project.

But before I hear the solution, I want to know whether they understand the problem.

What is the owner trying to accomplish?
What isn’t working today?
What are the operational requirements?
What matters most if the project has to make tradeoffs?

An architect who begins solving the project before understanding those questions may produce an impressive design that answers the wrong problem.

I don’t expect an architect to agree with everything the owner says. Good professionals challenge assumptions.

But they should understand the owner’s objective before challenging the path to get there.

Do They Understand the Business Behind the Building?

A building isn’t successful simply because the design works architecturally.

The space has to work for the organization occupying it.

That requires more than understanding design terminology. The architect should be interested in how the organization operates, how people use the space and what business requirements are driving the project.

The requirements for an office, healthcare environment or other specialized facility may be very different.

Even two organizations occupying similar buildings may operate very differently.

I want an architect who asks enough questions to understand those differences.

Can They Talk About Cost Without Designing the Estimate?

The architect isn’t the cost estimator.

But cost cannot be someone else’s problem.

If the team proposes an idea, I want them to have some understanding of what that decision may mean to the budget.

That doesn’t require the architect to price the work. It does require enough practical awareness to recognize when a design direction, material choice or technical solution may have meaningful cost implications.

There is little value in letting the owner fall in love with a solution that was never reasonably aligned with the project budget.

The conversation about design and the conversation about cost cannot occur in separate rooms.

Do They Understand the Schedule—and the Decisions Behind It?

Asking whether an architect can meet the schedule isn’t enough.

I want to understand how they intend to meet it.

What information do they need from the owner?
Which decisions need to be made early?
What approvals or outside reviews could affect the work?
Where do they see schedule risk?

And what happens if the owner doesn’t make a required decision when the design team needs it?

A credible schedule isn’t simply a promised completion date. It identifies the decisions and dependencies required to get there.

Who Is Coordinating the Design Team?

The architectural drawings are only part of the design.

Engineering disciplines, specialty consultants and other technical requirements have to come together into one coordinated project.

I want to understand how the architect intends to manage that process.

Who identifies the required consultants?
Who defines their scopes?
Who makes sure one discipline’s solution doesn’t create a problem for another?

And when something falls between scopes, who recognizes the gap?

An owner shouldn’t discover during construction that everyone completed their individual assignment but nobody coordinated the whole.

Have They Seen What Happens in the Field?

There is enormous value in architects who understand how drawings become construction.

Site experience changes the conversation.

A detail that works beautifully on paper may encounter an existing condition nobody anticipated. A dimension may not work as expected. Two systems may compete for the same space. A contractor may propose a different way to build something.

The architect doesn’t need to know every means and method of construction.

But I value architects who have spent enough time in the field to understand the consequences of their design decisions and who can work constructively with the people building the project.

That practical experience becomes particularly valuable when the drawings and the field don’t line up perfectly.

Because eventually, on most projects, they won’t.

The Portfolio Gets Them Into the Room

An architect interview shouldn’t become a competition over who can show the most impressive portfolio.

The owner is selecting a team that may spend years translating business requirements into a design, coordinating consultants, navigating decisions and responding when construction doesn’t go exactly as planned.

I want to know what they’ve designed.

But I also want to know how they listen.

How they challenge assumptions.

How they communicate cost and schedule implications.

Who will actually be there when the project gets difficult.

And whether they understand what the owner is trying to accomplish.

The portfolio gets them into the room.

The way they think should determine what happens next.

Leadership takeaway: Select the architect for the project you’re about to undertake—not simply for the projects they’ve already completed.