AHMANN LLC Architectural Services

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Overall it went very well. Having someone experienced to work out the design in advance gave us great confidence in the project. Having someone work directly with the contractor was great, and Tom and his team were even good at telling us when some of our ideas were not so good. This was much appreciated since we've never been involved in a home renovation before. Tom was also able to get us a pretty good discount on the flooring and cabinets. In the end the renovation looked as promised and we are quite happy with the results.

Profesional and on time delivery.

Tom and his team were stellar through every step of the process. Specifically: - Tom is a conssumate professional. He's honest, and knows what he doesn't know (but knows a lot). - Tom and his team understood and listened to our ideas and style, and effectively translated them into plans. - Whenever we had a problem on our project (which usually stemmed from the builder), Tom always remained level-headed and played mediator, and always arrived at a reasonable and fair solution for everyone. - Tom and his team are highly competent. The techincal detail and accuracy of their work was amazing. Tom and his team are also adept at processing information, answering questions and solving problems in real time. - Tom and his team were unfailingly punctual.

Tom designed and supervised the addition of a second story to my home, and a re-model of my kitchen. He and his team had great ideas for design and materials throughout the entire process. We passed a lot of drawings and sketches back and forth, and Tom was always eager to discuss my ideas, and to explore ways of incorporating them into the overall design. He clearly had the respect of my builders and other contractors, and they all worked very well together. He was a frequent visitor to the construction site and kept a close eye on making sure that the builders were executing our vision. Tom handled everything for me, including bidding, permitting and inspections. His estimates of both time and cost were right on the mark. Ahmann Architects has a great deal of experience, and the entire team takes great pride in their work. This pride shows in their responsiveness and most importantly, in the results. I am very happy in my home, and I highly recommend Tom Ahmann and Ahmann Architects.

They are wonderful to work with. They always do a wonderful job of communication, when we were dealing with the non conforming site I never felt out of the loop and the papers were filed with the correct officials. They are detailed and very clear as to what you can expect from working with them. I was very pleased with the communication and followup through out both projects we used them for.

It went very well. The support was responsive, they listen carefully and they were quick and cost effective.

(04/16/2010) They had first given us an estimate before they started work. We had interviewed several architects before we zeroed in on them. They seemed to understand what we were interested in. They had a beautiful portfolio of earlier work. We got the impression that they’d be easy to work with. UPDATE (05/31/2010) Mr. Ahmann's staff did the initial measuring of our home (we did not have any original plans) and produced drawings incorporating all our wishes. But we quickly saw that those plans were vastly more expensive than we wished. In our first one hour meeting to review those plans my wife and I reacted to those first drawings by making many changes and quick decisions. Many of those decisions were bad ones – but Mr. Ahmann said nothing to guide us. We then received a set of 'final layouts'. It was instantly obvious that they were bad and in no way what we really wanted. And we were shocked to discover that we had already spent all the money budgeted for getting the floor plans done! When we complained about this Mr. Ahmann did work with us to create another set of layouts at no additional charge. The drawings were still unsatisfactory and after one last meeting to try to fix things we gave up on Mr. Ahmann and terminated the contract. We were very disappointed at the time, money, and effort wasted. Throughout the process Mr. Ahmann made only minor suggestions and never provided the guidance and help we expected from a professional architect. When pressed on important points - like "how will we do a roof for this part" he threw out unconsidered and plainly bad ideas (for the areas needing new roofs he just added ‘shed roof’ to the layouts – a choice completely wrong for our home). When we - in our first set of revisions – came up with some bad ideas - he just went ahead and drew them in. The moment we saw them on paper we knew they would not work. We feel very strongly that time and money was wasted because he didn't say things he should have. Basically we paid a lot of money for work that a draftsman would have done at a fraction of the prices. That failure to function as an architect - even when increasingly pressed to do so - was very disappointing to us. On a very strict interpretation of his contract he did what the contract said he was to do. But he did not do what we, reasonably, expected a professional architect to do. We cannot recommend him as an architect. We are now working with a design/build firm which has proven much more capable, interested, and even enthusiastic about showing us how our ideas can be made real. Their fee for the drawings is far more reasonable than Mr. Ahmann’s and their passion for creating a home we will love is a huge contrast to Mr. Ahmann’s apparent lack of interest.

Tom Ahmann was very professional. He gave a professional and impressive presentation from his portfolio. He displayed detailed knowledge of DC zoning, permitting and building code requirements. Offered interesting and useful comments on our ideas and new ideas of his own. He educated us about the design, permitting and construction process. Tom was readily available to meet with us, accommodated our schedule, followed up on a timely basis, and submitted his proposal quickly following the initial consultation. We noted the comment about higher pricing than other architects in another Angie's List entry. That was NOT our experience. When compared on an apples to apples basis, Tom's proposal was consistent with the other architects we considered. Ahmann's hourly rates were the same as competitors. Ahmann's scope of work included in base services was broader than competitors. When the scopes of work were made consistent, the projected cost for architectural services was about the same. We very seriously considered Ahmann Architects, but ultimately chose another architect-NOT on the basis of qualifications, but rather on the basis of taste. The other architect's qualifications were comparable(perhaps even slightly less)than Ahmann's, but the other architect's portfolio of work better mirrored our personal architectural tastes. We would strongly recommend considering Ahmann Architects for residential architectural work of the sort we are undertaking.

Very professional work. Addition was approved by co-op staff without referral to the Architecture Committee, where nosy neighbors can cause design changes and delays. Seemed expensive, though.