Horrible Clients // design

AFTER (MY DESIGN)

BEFORE

I always loved to design, I went through almost almost seven years of higher education in undergraduate and graduate school to become an Architect and now I have the ability to design and orchestrate projects from start to finish and sign and seal them but I can't! WHY? Well I've come to the realization that the general public is really unaware of the value of an Architect (or any designer of the built environment), and has no idea what an Architect really does and more importantly has no respect for our profession and that really gets me mad. So called contractors  attempt to design slap things together and people accept and pay for the crap. I never intended to make this blog about my misfortunes but something that recently occurred has put me in a bit of a tizzy. Very simply, we were contacted by a person who wanted to design a salon in Hoboken, she interviewed me  grilled me on the phone for over an hour. I sent her a proposal for her job outlining what we intended to do and a fee, a few days later she hired us. We sent construction estimates etc. We drove out to her space and met with her for 5 hours on one of the coldest days we've had this winter in a space with no heat. When we left I was excited to have what I thought would be a great little project even though I was starving and could not feel my feet the entire ride home. 

I started designing the project, doing drawings and renderings to prepare to meet her the next week ( she stressed she needed it done fast). When we met the second time, we brought an engineer with us to check out some questionable conditions and give his opinion as to how we should proceed. I left that meeting with a strange feeling. That evening I sent her 2 floor plans to be approved and she never responeded but I kept working. THREE days later, I get a call saying we're off the job..she found a cheaper architect! WHAT! we had a contract, we agreed on it, we had already started work but she found a guy who "has dinner with the building inspector and will get her job done for her"..that is doing some backdoor deals to get the work done rather than following the approvals process in place and abiding by the LAW! WTF. I was so so angry and took many days to not feel anger towards random women who even slightly resembled this "horrible client". So a few weeks pass and I've stopped wishing her bad and she emails to ask if the retainer she gave us was worth the work we had already done and apologized "sincerely" for leaving us high and dry. I resisted unleashing weeks of anger on her and simply said that it was our fault for not collecting the entire contract cost upfront and so we would take it as a loss. I really wish there was more of market for design in this country, it seems like people just don't see any value in our work and would rather cut corners. What a disappointment.