2. INVITE THEM TO YOUR SITE
The right architect will happily come for a meeting or two to listen and share relevant ideas about your project and meet your group. This is a critical time to see how the relationship will work if you move forward.
8 Things To Know About Hiring An Architect For Your Project
Architecture is like medicine or law – you want someone who spends most of their time working on commercial issues. Just as heart surgery requires a heart doctor, commercial architecture requires a commercial architect.
The right architect will happily come for a meeting or two to listen and share relevant ideas about your project and meet your group. This is a critical time to see how the relationship will work if you move forward.
In fact, you should remove anyone that shows up with a design. Great design comes from great inquiry and great listening, and they both take time and understanding of the situation.
Yes, they exist in every market. Recycling plans, pushing presentation drawings without any process or forethought. Since 1946, as we have served many churches, we encourage you to gracefully exit those conversations. Although well meaning as they may be, there is more harm than good that come from these relationships.
Focus upon the vision that the Lord has placed in your leadership and do not settle for an architect who is not in alignment with that vision. Find your firm and your lead architect and then pay a fair price to work with him or her.
No matter how your church is structured, ultimately the project must go before the congregation for funding. Congregations routinely ask probing questions to see if all alternatives have been considered. If they have been, they will be happy. If not they will rightly walk away or turn a deaf ear. Prepare for these meetings thoroughly with a good architect and a good process, and you will do just fine..
It’s easier to raise the appropriate amount of of resource needed with a clear vision than a meager amount with a lack of vision. Get a vision that is worth pursuing.
Your architect needs to be a believer, and he needs to feel comfortable so you can seek the Lord together in the meetings you will have. Being “unequally yoked” in this critical endeavor is a precarious and many times costly experience.