Architect Recomendations

[Mike In Canada]

I have completed renovations to the land I purchased on the sea, and now ready for a house. I am looking for an architect in Luzon my property is located in Ilocos Sur. I want the house to Canadian standards with top of the line finishes, large terraces, 2 story about 400 square meters. I will purchase all building materials and hire all contractors so I just need someone for the drawings/plans that has experience building such houses. If anyone has any recommendations that would be great.

I want to build something like this but smaller

 

 

[scott h]

Mike, a topic near and dear to my heart. We built our house from tear down of the old dwelling to installation of the last bar on the windows. One of the nice things about the Philippines is that if you have the budget, you can have anything built that your heart desires. This is what we did:

20 hours ago, Mike In Canada said:

I just need someone for the drawings/plans

We found an online program that we used to draw up the basic design of our house (there are some really good ones out there and they are free), we made plans to the EXACT dimensions of our lot. To include dirty kitchen, windows, baths, stairway you name it we put it in. We printed that out on a 8x11 piece of paper and gave it to our architect. (who happens to be a family member naturally ). He took our design and made blue prints that reflected exactly our design, got all of the needed permits and just awaited our final approval.

Contractors and laborers: Now this is my impression on how things work here in Metro Manila. Each architect has crews that work on their projects. I suppose you can either accept his crew or search for your own. But like you we purchased all the material and handled all payroll. The crew foreman just gave us a list of materials that would be needed the next day or week and we ordered it for them. All laborers live on site. Naturally we paid in cash once a week (Saturdays), but be forewarned that crews (at least in our area) expect to have an "advance" on their salary (usually Wednesdays) so for all intents and purposes they were paid twice a week. (after talking to some of the guys, they would use the advance (500 pesos) to live during the week and on Saturday take the big pay check home to their families). Now this is a pain in the butt, paying twice a week, but in my view, happy workers, better results.

Payment??:: Our architects fee was a flat percentage of the total project estimate (I want to say 2% or 5%) paid to him in 3 installments if memory serves. The labor foreman was paid a flat daily rate as were the laborers.

Terms: The terms used here are a bit different than I was used to. Here an architect is what I would have termed the "general contractor". He draws the plans, organizes the labor etc. and just shows up now and then to check on progress. The labor foreman supervises the day to day construction and projects what materials will be needed.

Our architect's major contract is the army/navy burger chain here. I don't know if he would work in your area or not, I can ask, but my suggestion would be to inquire among your larger family members here. I would be willing to bet that someone knows someone who has a cousin who's brother is an architect. That would be my starting place .

Sorry for the long winded post, but this is going to be your major project here and I am sure you don't want to suffer from the 4 P's.

 

[chris49]

Message sent.

As I recall Mike we did talk earlier. Sta Lucia is one of my bike race venues. About 60 km south of Vigan where I live,