WHAT ON EARTH ARCHITECTURE

We had no experience working with an architect until we hired "What on Earth." We basically knew what we wanted and we expected that the architect would bring substantial creativity to the process. What on Earth (WOE) lacked more than creativity. We were hugely disappointed. The process seemed to drag on way too long. And it seemed to us that the intent was to build billable hours. The cost of WOE services were way out of line with the final product. We could have hired a much better architect for the money spent. He not only lacked creativity but lacked basic problem solving. For example, he insisted that we could not put a door in a location because it would open in a fashion that would diminish function. He seemed very surprised when I pointed out that the door hinges needed to be moved to the opposite side of the door frame and it would work fine. And it did. There were a number of issues that came up that were really disappointing. WOE lacked skills in designing proportions. We wanted a nice front porch. WOE drawings offered a totally useless porch and was re-proportioned by our builder. The worst "proportion" item was the master bedroom. WOE was given the dimensions of our bedroom furniture to assure that the bedroom was sized to accommodate the furniture. Well after construction was under way we received a call from the contractor. He needed for us to make a site visit because there was a problem. The master bedroom walls had been built, erected and skinned. It was obvious that our furniture, which was minimal, would not fit into the small space. The result was to tear down the walls, cantilever the floors joist beyond the foundations and begin again. That added thousands of dollars of cost because of careless/poor design. For the cost of services billed by WOE we could have hired a much better architect. Or for less money we could have just worked with a draftsman. Thank goodness we had a skilled builder to work around the shortcomings of the renderings provided by WOE.