Globally, less than 2% of houses are designed by architects. Could this become 10%? And what would our communities look like if it did?
I would like to see more architects involved in residential design. Not fewer.
That might surprise you, given what I’m about to say. But I’ve spent 37 years in property development across Europe and Australasia, and I’ve seen what happens when architects get it right. The problem is, the profession has structured itself in ways that make it almost impossible for most homeowners to afford their skills. And gaps in architectural education mean those skills often don’t extend to the things that matter most: buildability, sustainability, and affordability.
This isn’t an attack. It’s an invitation to a conversation the profession seems reluctant to have.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Architecture Fees
Most architects charge a percentage of the finished build cost, typically 8-15% for full services. In today’s affordability housing crisis that can be a considerable amount of money for what many would deem too expensive, or unjustified.
I’ve asked many architects why, and the answer is usually some variation of “that’s how the industry does it.”
But think about what this incentivises. If your fee rises with the build cost, where’s the motivation to design efficiently? To specify cost-effective materials? To simplify construction?
Compare this to structural and civil engineers, who charge time and materials. You don’t hear engineers defending percentage-based fees. They quote for the work, do the work, and invoice accordingly. Why can’t all architects do the same?
The percentage model made sense when architects were the sole gatekeepers of building design, when their drawings were the law of the project. That world hasn’t existed for decades now. Today, architectural designers, building designers, structural engineers, and even design-build firms offer the same services. The profession needs to compete on value, not tradition.
The Education Gap
Here’s what I rarely see addressed in architectural education: how buildings actually get built.
A good design, in my view, needs to be more than aesthetically pleasing and functional. It needs to be buildable, so a competent builder can execute it without heroic effort, added complexity and cost. It needs to be maintainable, ageing gracefully rather than becoming a burden. It needs to be sustainable, minimising embodied carbon and operational energy. And it needs to be affordable, delivering genuine value rather than just cost.
Many architects think about the unveiling of the building as the end of the story, but it’s the clients who pay their bills who have to live with the choices.
These aren’t secondary concerns. They’re fundamental to whether architecture serves people or merely impresses other architects.
I’ve worked on projects where the architect specified complex details that no local contractor could execute properly, not because the contractors were unskilled, but because the details existed in a world of theory rather than trade reality. I’ve seen specifications that ignored the most basic durability and health requirements.
This isn’t necessarily the architect’s fault. It’s a curriculum that prioritises form over the full spectrum of function. It’s a professional culture that celebrates the photogenic moment of completion rather than the decades of inhabitation that follow.
The Commission Question
I’ll raise something the profession would rather not discuss: product margins and commissions.
In one of our New Zealand construction supply businesses, architects regularly ask for trade margins, typically 15-30% on specified products. This happens often enough that it’s clearly normalised practice, despite professional bodies explicitly prohibiting it.
In the worst case I was told by an Auckland-based architecture firm’s employee that their firm requires at least $1M in design fees and $1M in product commissions on their high-end residential projects. That’s an extraordinary sum, and again, the product margin alone represents a significant conflict of interest.
I have no issue with trades making margin on products they source and supply, especially if they’re savvy enough to get wholesale pricing, make a margin, and still pass on savings to their client. That’s commerce. But if you’re charging a professional fee for independent advice while also taking undisclosed commissions on your specifications, in my opinion you have a conflict of interest. I assume their professional body agrees, which is why they prohibit it.
If this practice is as widespread as my experience suggests, it’s undermining the profession’s credibility. Either enforce the rules or change them. The current situation, where the rule exists on paper but is ignored in practice, serves no one.
What Would Bring Architects Into More Projects?
Contrary to what you may believe, I want to see many more architects involved in our residential projects because far too many of our new housing developments are quite frankly ugly, soulless, and verging on ghetto status. Here’s what I think could help:
Time-based fees, transparently quoted. Charge for your time and expertise, not a percentage of other people’s spending. This aligns your interests with your clients’ and removes the perverse incentive to specify what pays best. It also makes architectural services accessible to smaller projects that currently can’t justify percentage-based fees.
Expanded education in building systems and construction economics. Architects should graduate understanding modern construction methods, prefabrication systems, passive design principles, and the real economics of building. I think even basic design practices like lighting are missing from most architecture syllabuses now.
They should be able to have informed conversations with engineers, builders, and quantity surveyors, not as adversaries, but as collaborators with overlapping knowledge.
Sustainability and affordability as core competencies. Climate change and housing affordability are the defining challenges of our built environment. Architects should be leading the response, not trailing it. This means understanding embodied carbon, operational energy, life-cycle costs, and how to deliver quality at realistic budgets. Currently, this knowledge often sits with building scientists and sustainability consultants, specialists that only well-funded projects can afford. If architects integrated these competencies, they’d become indispensable rather than optional.
Honest engagement with market alternatives. The 98%+ of homes without architects aren’t being designed in a vacuum. They’re being designed by architectural designers, building designers, and design-build firms, often with excellent results and at lower cost. Rather than dismissing these alternatives, the profession should study what they do well and respond with genuine value differentiation.
A Note on Professional Bodies
If a professional body’s ethical rules aren’t enforced, what purpose does the body serve? Membership becomes a marketing badge rather than a meaningful credential.
I’d suggest that architecture bodies have a choice: enforce their rules on conflicts of interest and fee practices or acknowledge that the rules don’t reflect reality and revise them. The current situation, with rules that exist but aren’t enforced, damages the profession’s credibility more than either alternative would.
Do your clients think they get better service from you if you belong to the NZIA or NZRAB? Does their professional training hit the mark?
The Opportunity
None of this is meant to diminish what architects can contribute. At their best, architects bring spatial intelligence, aesthetic vision, and problem-solving creativity that very few professions can replicate. A really good architect can transform a brief into something the client didn’t know they wanted until they saw it. That’s genuinely valuable.
But value has to be accessible to be realised. If the fee structure, the education, and the professional culture all conspire to make architectural services irrelevant to 98% of housing, then the profession is failing itself.
I want to see architects at the table for more projects. I want their skills applied to the housing challenges that actually matter: sustainability, affordability, buildability. I want communities full of thoughtfully designed homes, not just a handful of showcase projects that cost the moon.
That future is possible. But it requires the profession and attitudes to change, not at the margins, but fundamentally.
The question is whether architects want to design that future, or have it designed for them.
Related
Guide to Choosing an Architect for Your New House Project.
