Over the last week I’ve presented five different sketch scheme ideas to five different clients. They’re always a bit nerve wracking in that you never know whether you’ve interpreted their brief or requirements correctly.

Luckily all five presentations went well. And without exception the sentiments expressed were along the lines of:

“We would never have thought of this design”

“An engineer would never have thought of this design” and

“Our builder would definitely have never thought of this design” and summarised with:

“That is why we wanted an architect. To give us a design that we couldn’t have done ourselves.”

This is what the architect is trained to do – To understand and design in three dimensional space. To create music and ideas from space. And to create and maximise spaces in 3D. In fact one of the sketch designs involved no building whatsoever – just understanding and then reorganising the space they already have in both plan and section in order to create the spaces they required.

You’ll see a few Twitter handles mentioned in the title; all are architects and would bring a similar approach to the table. All are trained to understand, work with and then design in three dimensions. All would have similar training to myself in that we are specifically trained in design. You’ve seen Dermot on Room to Improve and you’ll see similar design skills across many architects. But the key is that they are all architects. Trained in design. nb Don’t forget that architects are also trained in construction, detailing and contract management!

So how do you know whether your architect is in fact an architect – by checking with the RIAI HERE