There’s an old joke in this industry that the only professionals with ‘clients’ are architects, lawyers, and prostitutes. The punch line, of course, is we all have the reputation that we’re out to screw you but only the prostitute is honest about it.

This is amusing, I suppose, if you have had a nasty experience with an arrogant and unskilled architect but it is far from the truth. In the current climate especially, architects are most definitely the ones being screwed. There are two reasons for this: the way we charge for our services (which I’ll come to in a minute) and the wholly illogical tradition within architecture to expect to work for nothing on competition work which has a minimal chance of being won.

Hard times

Why am I thinking about this now? Well, it occurred to me last week that despite there being a recession (depression?) and virtually no projects being taken forward I am still working as hard and for as many hours as I was during the peak of last year. One would think that perhaps now would be a time to live life a little, relax, not stay in the office until the early hours, and take advantage of all the amazing things the city has to offer.

Not a chance. Years of architectural education and high pressured office time has instilled in the average architect a sense of guilt when not working that obliges them to stay chained to their desks regardless of the situation. Now, of course, the guilt is compounded by the fear of appearing idle and being the most obvious candidate for redundancy. What really grinds is knowing I’ve been working without a fee for 5 months on competitions with really very little to show. I can’t quite believe that either the lawyer or the prostitute would work for this long without payment.

We’ll pay you whenever

Which brings us nicely on to the method by which we get paid. Lawyers and prostitutes traditionally work on a time-based charge. That’s fine: you do your business, and you get paid. Should the client not pay then you’ve lost a quantifiable amount of cash and time, you cease work, sue the defaulter, (or get your pimp to give them a good beating) and move on.

Architecture is less structured. There is no fixed conclusion to a piece of work in the design stages and the most practical method of payment is monthly, setting a reasonable benchmark of deliverables along the way. Usually this works fine if you have a competent accountant and credit is flowing easily between banks and customers. Of course things are different nowadays and even a competent accountant is powerless, in the short term, to squeeze money out of clients that are not inclined to pay. It’s a cash flow question that’s easily explained when one looks at the figures.

… if we pay you

Lets imagine the most extreme example: a practice employs 100 people, 70 of whom are fee earners charged out at around £15000 a month. One month’s work is billed for each employee at the end of the month – the company is owed £1 million, due within the next 28 days.

There is an element of professional trust between the client and architect that makes it unreasonable to stop work for the next month if payment is not received. At this point the company is owed £2 million and alarm bells should start to ring if there is no payment. But, because we need the work and we don’t wish to sour our relationship with the client we will work for another month, be owed £3 million, and leave ourselves at huge risk. It is only now we begin to establish that the client is either broke, or a crook, and we call a halt to the work.

In the long run we may be able to claw back some of the fees after lengthy legal proceedings but it leaves a gaping hole in the company cash flow. It is, of course, hugely unlikely that every job in the office will end up in a scenario like this. Unfortunately though, this is becoming a reality, not because the clients are dishonest, but because they genuinely cannot source the finance to pay the fees.

My point, I suppose, is that architects really do not have much opportunity to screw people over. I hope I’ve made the point that more often than not we are the ones on the receiving end. If you are an architect or consultant Id be interested to hear how your firms are dealing with what is becoming a more serious problem by the day.