Choosing an Architect and Engineers for Your Home

A house that works is rarely designed by one person. The architect leads, working with engineers who design the structure and the services: the frame that holds the house up, and the wiring, pipes and air conditioning that make it work. Together, the architect and engineers you choose turn what you want from the house into drawings a builder can price and build from.

Those drawings decide where every wall, beam, socket, pipe and air conditioner goes. Anything they leave out is decided later, on site, once walls and slabs already limit the choices. A decision made then is usually a compromise: the socket goes where a cable can still reach, the air conditioner where the wall allows, and the house lives with the result for as long as it stands. The team works best from a written brief, and Planning Your Home: Start With How You'll Live explains what goes in one. The work itself starts with a survey of the plot.

What survey does your plot need before design?

A survey by a licensed surveyor, showing the plot's boundaries and the levels of the ground. On a flat plot this is quick. On a sloping one, the levels shape almost everything: where the floors sit, how many steps you climb, where rainwater runs and how deep the foundations go. Have the survey ready before any drawing starts.

What does an architect do for your house?

The architect turns your brief into a design: floor plans, elevations, sections and the details that show how each part is built. They usually put together the application your district assembly needs before it grants a development permit, with the engineers' drawings and the surveyor's site plan included. After Buying Land in Ghana, Lease and Development Permit covers the permit in full.

Architects differ in how much they do once the design is approved. Some hand over the drawings and step away. Others visit the site during the build, check the work follows the drawings and answer the builder's questions. Agree which you are paying for, and put the scope and the fee in writing before any work starts. Fees may be a percentage of the building cost or a fixed sum. Ask which, and what happens to a percentage fee if the budget rises.

If your plot is in an estate with design rules, give them to the architect with your brief. A design that breaks them will have to be redrawn, however good it looks.

What does a structural engineer do?

The structural engineer designs what holds the house up: the foundations, columns, beams and floor slabs, sized for the ground on your plot and the weight of the house above it. Many engineers will ask for a soil test before designing the foundations.

This is where long-term plans matter. If you might add a floor one day, tell the engineer now, and check that any estate rules allow the extra storey. It will need a permit of its own when the time comes. Foundations and columns designed for one storey may not carry two, and strengthening them under a finished house is far harder than designing for it at the start.

What does MEP mean?

MEP stands for mechanical, electrical and plumbing, and one team usually designs all three. Mechanical covers air conditioning and ventilation. Electrical covers sockets, lighting, circuits, earthing and the connection to a generator or solar inverter. Plumbing covers the water supply, tanks and pumps, hot water, the septic tank or biodigester, and drainage, including rainwater carried away from the house.

Much of the work is calculation. The team works out how much cooling each room needs, so each air conditioner is the right size; how much power the house will draw, so the cables, breakers, generator and inverter can carry it; and how much water the household uses, so the tank, pump and pipes keep up and the drains fall steeply enough to carry it away. A builder working without these figures has to guess, and a wrong guess shows up as tripping breakers, weak showers or rooms that never cool.

Some of the commonest faults in a new house are MEP faults: the kitchen worktop with no socket nearby, the air conditioner that blows straight onto the bed. Both are fixed on paper by drawing the electrical and air conditioning layouts with the furniture shown. Ask to see them that way. Once the drawing shows where the bed goes, the air conditioner can go somewhere else.

How do the architect and engineers work together?

Usually the architect, as lead consultant, brings the structure and the services into one set of drawings. Architects often recommend engineers, or bring a team they already work with, though you can also appoint the engineers yourself. Either way, agree who coordinates, so that the design, the structure and the services end up on drawings that agree with each other.

When they do not, the clash is found on site. A beam sits exactly where a drainage pipe needs to run, and the builder either reroutes the pipe or cuts into the beam, which weakens it. The same clash found on paper is a few minutes' work with a pencil.

Once the drawings are finished, a quantity surveyor turns them into a list of everything the builder will price, so that quotes can be compared. That is covered in a later article in this guide.

Is a design team worth the cost?

Almost always, once you count what doing without one costs. Fees for an architect and engineers can look like money that could go into the house itself, but every fault in this article, from the misplaced socket to the weakened beam, is cheap to fix on a drawing and expensive to fix in a finished house. None of them appears in a builder's first quote.

Fees are paid once. A house that is hard to live in costs something every day it is lived in, and a family house may be lived in by more than one generation.

If you are building at Forest Hill, the Design Studio on this website gives an indicative budget for your house with the professional team already included, alongside construction, permits and a contingency. Seen that way, the design team is one part of what the house costs.

How do you check an architect or engineer is registered in Ghana?

Check the architect against the Architects Registration Council's list for the current year, and the engineer's registration number on their drawings. Both must be registered to practise. For an architect, look for the name, and the firm's, among those in good standing, under architects rather than probationers, who are still in training. For an engineer, ask for their Engineering Council registration number at the start. The law requires it, with their name, signature and the date, on every engineering drawing they prepare, so look for it when the drawings arrive. If a name or number is missing, ask why before going further.

Eight questions to ask before you appoint your design team

• Is the architect on this year's Architects Registration Council list as an architect, and is the firm on it too?

• What is each engineer's Engineering Council registration number?

• Which of your finished houses can I visit?

• Who are the structural and MEP engineers, and who coordinates them?

• Does the fee cover the design only, the permit drawings, or site visits during the build as well?

• Will the electrical and air conditioning layouts be drawn with the furniture shown?

• If we may add a floor later, will the structure be designed for it?

• If we part ways before the house is finished, can we keep using the drawings?

Once you are happy with the answers, it helps to have them, and the fee, confirmed in writing before work begins.