Meeting over the options, marking them up, talking them through, and narrowing down.
If you don't like your architect's design and you can't yet say why, you're in a very ordinary place. You've been sitting on it, you've drafted the email three times and deleted it, and you're starting to wonder whether the problem is you.
It isn't. What usually stops you is the worry about seeming rude, or about looking like you haven't understood, and that worry is the most expensive thing in this process because it's silent.
So my advice is unglamorous. Don't wait until you can articulate it. Point at the drawing and say the entry feels mean, or the room feels wrong, or you can't picture yourself in it. Working out why is what I'm trained for. The only thing I can't do is solve a problem nobody has mentioned.
'I don't know why, but I don't like it' is one of the most useful things you can say to me.
A marked-up set and a clear direction. Concept design is the moment to push back and change your mind, because it costs nothing but time. The same change in construction drawings costs a fee, and on site it becomes a variation.
Permission to be blunt. 'I don't know why, but I don't like it' is genuinely useful information, and here bluntness is cheaper than politeness. You don't need a solution, or even a reason.
On your own it's easy to nod politely, go home uneasy, and raise it much later when it's harder to change. Most of that comes from not knowing which objections are worth raising.
Be difficult now. I say it at the start of every engagement and I'll say it again here, because the value of an objection falls sharply the later you raise it. A change at concept costs nothing but time. The same change in construction drawings costs a fee. 'I don't know why, but I don't like it' is genuinely useful to me — I'd far rather hear it across a table now than read it in an email once it's drawn.
Say it in the meeting, early, in whatever words you have. Start with what you're reacting to rather than what you'd prefer — 'the front feels closed off' is more useful than 'can we have more windows', because the first lets me solve it and the second commits us both to one solution. Then ask for the reasoning before ruling it out.
Write it down before the meeting, while you're alone and honest. Sort it into three piles — must change, would prefer, and just noticing — and say which pile each comment sits in, because otherwise I'll act on an offhand remark you didn't mean seriously.
Yes. At concept stage, revisions within the agreed rounds are part of what you've already paid for. Beyond that, a change that alters the agreed scope changes the services, and both the scope and the fee get agreed in writing first. So the sequence is simple: ask what it would cost, then decide. I'll tell you unprompted, including when the answer is nothing.
That's a legitimate outcome and usually a productive one. Three rejected schemes narrow the field considerably, provided you can say what fails in each. Do that work with me and we'll get somewhere quickly. And if nothing has landed, we'll talk directly about whether the fit is right — each stage is agreed and paid for separately.
Yes, both, every time. A decision relayed second-hand arrives without its reasoning, and the reasoning is the part that matters when the same question comes back in a different form later. Whoever wasn't in the room ends up agreeing to conclusions rather than to arguments. If one of you truly can't make it, ask me for the reasoning in writing.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.
