Housing and Community Development

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Half way through schematic design a residential renovation client has decided to hire an interior designer.  They are very happy with my work but the new designer will be actively involved in space design, not simply selecting furniture.  They have asked me for my ACAD drawings. (I use Revit but can export...)  Of course I share drawings with my consultants, but the designer is contracted to the owner.  I want to be a team player but have two concerns: value and liability. The drawings are obviously worth something to them and they do not belong to the owner.  (I use standard AIA agreements.)I feel like some compensation would be fair.  I'm also concerned about liability. If they goof and blame it on my drawings, what's my protection? How have any of you dealt with this issue of designers requesting drawings?


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Thomas Ahleman AIA
Principal
Studio Talo Architecture, Inc.
Evanston IL
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The question you have to ask yourself is, "Will this designer need you one day to do the heavy lifting?" Is there "value" in that new relationship? What will they do with your drawings that will compel the owner to sue you? If it were me in your situation, I'd be less concerned about liability and more concerned about the potential value of another source for work.

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Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
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I always offer to share my drawings with the Interior Designer.  I encourage my clients to consider working with a designer.  Their product libraries and knowledge are often far superior to my own.  I always furnish my plans when designing.  I want them to see my furnishing placements.  They almost never draw interior elevations. I want them to consider my ideas.  I want a collaborative team effort.  I want to cover the designers ass (pun later) and I want him/her to cover mine.  I also want to know and understand his/her choices and reasons.  I feel that there is much less liability this way than from independent drawings.

I started working with one designer in 1991.  We've done 20 projects together.  She's brought me lots of work.  In 1999 we became a "couple" for 5 years.  We still work together and are friends.  You can never know where your business contacts will take you. ;-)  

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David Ludwig
Sausalito CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2011 08:00
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Sharing dwgs w/interior designer

The question you have to ask yourself is, "Will this designer need you one day to do the heavy lifting?" Is there "value" in that new relationship? What will they do with your drawings that will compel the owner to sue you? If it were me in your situation, I'd be less concerned about liability and more concerned about the potential value of another source for work.

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Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
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Donald Duffy AIA
Don Duffy Architecture
Charlotte NC
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You make good points. Here is my long answer.
 
I think the  drawings are an instrument of service and you have been compensated for the service expressed via drawings. The client paid you for work. Charging the designer will end up charging the owner for the drawings
as a reimbursable expense to the designer. That sounds like the owner pays twice. I would not like that as the owner.
We would share the drawing with designer as curtesy to our client the owner. We would charge the owner for our time to transfer files.

Most designers we work with cannot draw or even sketch. So we do the drawings for the designer. We treat them much like the client, give us your ideas and we will develop them and make sense of them. We also get to coordinate the their work with ours. Not something designers do very well either.

Should we give live files to the designer we take all reference to us, the architect off the work and send a disclaimer the the drawings are continuously revised by the architect and the information that is sent and received by the designer needs to be coordinated by the designer periodically.

This is the biggest reason for the architect to do the drawings. If they want drawings for furniture layout we give hard prints. I should  note, we  show furniture on our drawings up until we issue the working drawings for permit and then we turn that layer off.

You do have liability. Mostly because you are alive and "architect" is attached to your name. When something goes wrong you are the first to be blamed.  For some reason the client thinks the architect  who is at the top of ivory tower pyramid is responsible for making everyones work the way the client thought it should be when they realize it is not the way they wanted it.

Liability, oh yes.
I had  case where we partnered with a designer. We did the shell for permitting and she did all the interior drawings. Years after the owner moved in a stone mantle fell off the wall and injured a child. We were named in the suite even though as the architect we had no authorship on the interior elevations. We did review them. That was  a big point for the prosecution. The story gets more complicated, We included the designer sheets in our CD set but without our title block to say we were not responsible for the sheet and did not claim it. And we had some sheets that had both titles on them for shared credit.

The interior sheet sheets did not detail the interior work, just pretty pictures. We drew 1/4" building sections through the house that showed fireplace information for structural framing. no mention of mantels.

We also had no CA on the job. The owner excluded us from that service. At the end of the day, we were dismissed without predigest by all defendants, the contractor, mason, stone supplier and my engineer. My engineer was dismissed as well. This process only took 2 years and about 40k to defend. The wisdom to be gained is buy E and O insurance with first dollar defence. Don't include any body else drawings in your set. Even as curtesy. Discuss with the client what your role is especially when client reduces your role. Discuss the  designers role and who fills in the technical information needed to execute the designers ideas. In my case, the builder and mason did and they got it very wrong and ultimately all of the blame. The real loser was the child. We could have easally prevented the accident had we been allowed to do our job. In this case so much was left up to the builder and trade partners. Oh, I should say the designer cz not named.

Bottom line is, this is complicated business with great expectations on performance. Usually friends doing business with friends. A team effort by all parties. Cooperation is paramount. Managing the clients expectations against what they actually hired you for is paramount. I discuss means and methods all the time with my clients. And we talk about not being responsible for what we don't do that someone thinks we should have done when something is not as expected.

The list is a mile long and the discussion goes  on long into the night. 

We share CAD files all the time, it's the way things are done these days.  We have a simple one page CAD agreement our attorney put together, and everyone with whom we share files signs it before we send out the drawings.  That protects our liability.

When it comes to value we look at it as value added to the owner.The owner has already paid us to prepare the drawings and do the design, we are doing the owner a disservice to force them to pay another consultant on the same "team" to redraft the same thing.

In terms of intellectual property, any interior designer could take a pdf or a print of a drawing and redraw it themselves if they want to.  But that would only cost the owner more money. The interior designer isn't saving any money by using our CAD files, in fact they are losing income they would have charged if they redrew our work.

Of course if the interior designer is looking to replace you that's a different discussion.

Hope this helps put a different perspective on things...

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Paul Kiss AIA
Principal
Olivieri, Shousky & Kiss, P.A
Pennington NJ
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I've been involved with this from both sides.  I have shared my architecture drawings with interior designers and I have also acted as the interior designer and had other architects share their drawings with me.  My advice would be to meet the interior designer face to face and discuss your relationship, discuss who will be responsible for what and how the drawings and information will be organized for the owner and contractor.  If you have any concerns about liability, then you and the designer should write up a letter for the owner to sign clarifying responsibilities.
I'm currently working on a project (as interior designer) where the architects (who are very good designers) just never really developed relationship with the client that enabled them to plan out the spaces for the client's lifestyle.  I made lots of changes to the floor plans.  Fortunately for the Architects, I understood all of the structural ramifications of all of the changes I was suggesting.  We emailed CAD files back and forth so they could incorporate my changes into their drawings.  We met several times and coordinated enough so that the contractor could build the core and shell of the house from the architect's drawings and then move on to my set of drawings.
I also just finished a job where I worked with another interior designer and I served as Architect.  We collaborated on most everything, but In the end I did all of the construction detailing for all of the interior design elements.  I did the C.A. for the interior design elements as well.
I think it doesn't matter that much if the interior designer is hired by the client or by you as a consultant.  In the end they're consultants for the project and all designers should do their best to work as a team.  Of course we all know lots of worst case scenarios.  But it you and the designer work together -- and you get to do a reasonable amount of C.A. -- most of those worst case scenarios can be avoided, and blame doesn't spread around as fast when we cooperate with each other.  
Good luck!     

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Jason Taylor AIA
Managing Member
J. Taylor Design Group, LLC
New Rochelle NY
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With haste, we all seem to respond.... With that said, I'm equally as guilty.

Should you be compensated - yes, absolutely - however, what's the motivation here? Are you selling drawings and designs or are these merely a vehicle of your services, thus a byproduct of the "built work"?

I would hope it is the later.

Concern for added liability and finger pointing - unfortunately, yes - mores so, a certainty in this profession as with most of the others. However, drawings are rarely 100% accurate or should I say "built exactly as drawn". It has something to do with having other Contractors and Builders involved, much less post-fact purported Design Professionals and lack of "extensive" on-site services. This is all of course; if a Constructability Review is not part of the process (rarely a part of small residential projects) and the documents are not just vehicles of an extensively comprehensive service's plan. Or, should I say; creating a "plan shop" is a dangerous road for those unfamiliar with its path.

To the earlier, if they are a vehicle of service, the services should carry you through to the projects fruition. If that's not the case, why sell a "virtual building" set of drawings to another to finish the work. There would be no need, with pdf (raster files) they can obtain them themselves with really not much liability, since they're not actually going to "knock off" your design, right? The owner has bought something beyond psychiatric advice, so they can move either forward with or without you (see: agreement at this point). Thus at the end of the day, you may own the design, however they own the property and their specific project. This should all be covered in the agreement, with emphasis, if there's added concern on your part regarding use in progress and compensation as a result of any severance.

Next, what's the issue, really? What is the interior designer (or decorator? (see: IL practice act, validate credentials, and understand duties (limitations?)) purpose for obtaining these, are they merely to be used as "backgrounds" (or do they intend to move walls)? If they're not moving walls, ask yourself and them (client and interiors) what is the purpose to obtain this extent of automated documentation?  Moreover, is it to move walls just to fit in furniture and / or to possibly alter intent? In either case, the answer to the questions raised should be evident to you now.

Finally, here are some principals you might want to revisit at this point;
1) It's important for you to have a continued relationship with clients and the trades,
2) Collaborations controlled by written agreement and revisited meetings of the minds throughout the process are important and valuable tools in the design professions,
3) Designs, drawings, and documents, themselves, should not be considered a commodity since it raises one to an untenable level of liability by the very nature of such a short sighted approach, and
4) Clients should be qualified to match your own practice and level of experience, since some customers will take advantage or your services and "stamp" accordingly.

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Stephen Dunakoskie AIA
Leesburg VA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-05-2011 00:53
From: Jason Taylor
Subject: Sharing dwgs w/interior designer

I've been involved with this from both sides.  I have shared my architecture drawings with interior designers and I have also acted as the interior designer and had other architects share their drawings with me.  My advice would be to meet the interior designer face to face and discuss your relationship, discuss who will be responsible for what and how the drawings and information will be organized for the owner and contractor.  If you have any concerns about liability, then you and the designer should write up a letter for the owner to sign clarifying responsibilities.
I'm currently working on a project (as interior designer) where the architects (who are very good designers) just never really developed relationship with the client that enabled them to plan out the spaces for the client's lifestyle.  I made lots of changes to the floor plans.  Fortunately for the Architects, I understood all of the structural ramifications of all of the changes I was suggesting.  We emailed CAD files back and forth so they could incorporate my changes into their drawings.  We met several times and coordinated enough so that the contractor could build the core and shell of the house from the architect's drawings and then move on to my set of drawings.
I also just finished a job where I worked with another interior designer and I served as Architect.  We collaborated on most everything, but In the end I did all of the construction detailing for all of the interior design elements.  I did the C.A. for the interior design elements as well.
I think it doesn't matter that much if the interior designer is hired by the client or by you as a consultant.  In the end they're consultants for the project and all designers should do their best to work as a team.  Of course we all know lots of worst case scenarios.  But it you and the designer work together -- and you get to do a reasonable amount of C.A. -- most of those worst case scenarios can be avoided, and blame doesn't spread around as fast when we cooperate with each other.  
Good luck!     

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Jason Taylor AIA
Managing Member
J. Taylor Design Group, LLC
New Rochelle NY
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