How to choose an interior architect and not regret it
Four questions worth asking at the first meeting — and one thing almost nobody looks at, although it decides how the whole build goes.
Portfolios look much the same everywhere. The photographs are good because a photographer took them, not an architect. They will not tell you whether someone is good to work with — only whether you like the aesthetic, and that is merely the first threshold.
Ask about documentation, not about style
This is the one question almost nobody asks, and the one that tells you most: what exactly do I receive at the end?
A good answer sounds roughly like this: a complete set of drawings the contractors can build from without asking questions. Electrics, plumbing, ventilation, air conditioning, every made-to-measure element drawn to the millimetre. A poor answer is "visualisations and floor plans".
The difference only shows up on site — by which point it is too late to change architect.
Ask whether they have seen the place
A design produced without visiting the flat or the plot is a design for an idea of it. Developer photographs will not show a crooked wall, noise from the street, or the fact that daylight reaches the room for only two hours a day.
We always go. With a house we start with a site audit: dimensions, legal constraints, utilities, level changes, neighbours.
Ask about revisions and about what happens afterwards
How many revisions of the concept are included, and what happens if you change your mind at the construction stage — this question saves a great deal of misunderstanding later.
And second: does the practice supervise the build. A design without supervision tends to get built freely. Someone has to check that the contractor did what was drawn, and to settle the things no visualisation can show.
What a portfolio cannot tell you
How quickly someone replies. Whether they explain decisions or impose them. Whether a disagreement leads to a solution or to sulking.
That is why our first meeting is free and commits you to nothing. The point is not to sell something within the hour — it is for you to see how we talk. A house design takes three to seven months, an interior two to six, a large residence up to a year. That is too long to spend with someone you find hard to talk to.
One thing worth looking for in a portfolio
Not style, but consistency of level. If a portfolio holds three excellent projects and ten ordinary ones, the excellent ones may have been the work of a client who knew exactly what they wanted.
And check whether the practice has designed anything at your scale. A fifty-square-metre flat and a six-hundred-metre house are two different crafts.