The Relationship Behind the Architecture
We spend an extraordinary amount of time in architecture talking about the things we produce. Drawings, specifications, schedules, budgets and deliverables. We develop processes to manage them, software to organize them and contracts to define who’s responsible for them. But after more than two decades working in architecture, I’ve come to believe that one of the most important factors in a successful project isn’t found in any of those documents.
It’s trust. More specifically, it’s the relationship between the owner and the architect. Not simply the contractual relationship, but the human one. The understanding that develops when two people spend enough time working together that they begin to appreciate how the other thinks, what matters to them and what they’re ultimately trying to achieve. I’ve worked on projects where the relationship never really developed beyond the formalities.
Drawings were issued, comments came back, meetings were held and decisions were documented. The work moved forward, but there was always a certain distance between the people involved. And I’ve worked on projects where the owner became much more than a client. We travelled together, shared meals, talked about our families, disagreed about decisions and learned from one another.
Those relationships changed the way we worked. More importantly, they changed what we were capable of achieving together.
Sometimes the Most Important Meeting Happens Over Fish and Chips
Years ago, I had the privilege of working with Mitch, who worked for the Kelowna School District. Over the course of several school projects, our working relationship grew into a genuine friendship.
We spent countless hours together in design meetings, site meetings and conversations about what made a good school. There were long days, trips away from the office and plenty of opportunities to get to know each other beyond the immediate demands of the project.
And there were the fish and chips.
Mitch loved fish and chips.
I remember sitting through consultant meetings when our mechanical engineer would begin getting deep into the details of fan coil units or some other technical discussion. Important information, certainly, but you could see Mitch beginning to lose interest. Eventually, he’d start quietly repeating, “Fish and chips. Fish and chips.”
That was our cue.
It was time to wrap up the meeting and go for lunch.
It’s a funny memory, but it illustrates something I’ve come to value enormously. We weren’t simply an architect and an owner sitting across a conference table. We knew each other. We understood each other’s personalities, priorities and frustrations.
That familiarity didn’t make the professional relationship less serious. It made our communication more effective.
When something needed to be discussed, we could discuss it. When something went wrong, we could be direct about it. We didn’t need to spend half the conversation navigating personalities or worrying about how a difficult message might be received.
We had already built the trust necessary to have those conversations.
Sometimes the conversations that build the strongest working relationships happen outside the meeting room.
Fair and Reasonable
One phrase Mitch used regularly has stayed with me throughout my career. It sounds simple, almost obvious. But in construction, particularly when money is involved, those three words can make an enormous difference.
When a change came forward, Mitch wanted to understand the circumstances. Was the cost justified? Was the work necessary? Was everyone being treated fairly? He understood that contractors needed to make money. Consultants deserved to be compensated for their work. Owners needed to protect their budgets. Nobody should be expected to work for free, but nobody should be taking advantage of the situation either.
What I particularly remember was how seriously he treated the first change on a project. He knew that the first change could establish expectations for everything that followed. If the team accepted unreasonable pricing or poor documentation at the beginning, it became much harder to challenge those practices later. So we would review those early changes carefully, together, and establish a standard.
It wasn’t about being difficult. It was about setting expectations. That approach carried through the rest of the project. People understood the standard, and when difficult conversations arose, we had something to return to. Being fair and reasonable wasn’t a slogan. It was how we made decisions.
Trust Gives Architects Room to Explore
Owners have legitimate reasons to be cautious. They’re responsible for the buildings long after the architect has moved on. They’re the ones dealing with maintenance, replacement costs, operational problems and the people who use those spaces every day. If an owner insists on a particular flooring system because they’ve experienced failures with alternatives, I understand that.
They’re protecting their investment and the people responsible for maintaining it. But there’s a difference between having standards and being unwilling to consider anything beyond them. When trust exists, an architect can say, “I understand why you’ve always done it this way, but I think there’s another option worth exploring.” And the owner might actually listen.
That was one of the things I appreciated most about working with Mitch. He trusted our professional judgment. He didn’t need to control every colour, finish or design decision. He knew when to challenge us, but he also knew when to give us room. I remember the opportunity to introduce learning stairs into one of our school designs.
It was a departure from the more conventional spaces we’d been working with, and it required an owner willing to consider a different approach. Mitch gave us that opportunity. We developed the idea, incorporated it into the school and saw how the space worked once the building was occupied. Afterward, when we reviewed what had worked well, his response was straightforward.
Do another one. That’s the kind of relationship that makes good architecture possible. The architect brings ideas and professional expertise. The owner brings operational knowledge, experience and an understanding of the people who will use the building. Neither perspective is complete on its own. When both are respected, the result can be something neither party would have arrived at independently.
Every Owner Has a Way of Working
One of the biggest mistakes an architectural team can make is treating every new project as though they’re starting from scratch.
This is particularly noticeable when working with repeat clients, such as school districts, municipalities or organizations with multiple facilities.
One school district might prefer large wall-mounted displays in classrooms. Another might have an established preference for ceiling-mounted projectors and traditional whiteboards. Some owners have strong opinions about flooring, door hardware, millwork, maintenance access or the location of electrical outlets.
Those preferences often come from years of operational experience.
Someone has already dealt with the failed flooring. Someone has spent hours trying to maintain equipment installed in an inaccessible location. Someone has listened to teachers explain why a particular classroom arrangement doesn’t work.
That knowledge is valuable, but too often it lives in people’s heads, buried in old meeting minutes or scattered across previous project files.
We should be capturing it.
After every project, sit down with the owner and ask what worked, what didn’t and what they would change next time. Turn those conversations into something useful: a client standards document, a design preferences guide or what I like to call an owner’s brand book.
Large organizations already understand this concept. A major bank, for example, may provide detailed brand and design standards governing everything from finishes and signage to colours and customer experience.
The same thinking can apply to a school district or municipality, even if the document is much simpler.
The objective isn’t to eliminate design flexibility. It’s to stop repeatedly asking questions that have already been answered.
And just as importantly, it creates a record of the owner’s preferences that can be reviewed and improved rather than followed blindly.
Every completed project should make the next one better. Capture the owner's standards, preferences and lessons learned.
The Owner Can Become Your Greatest Mentor
There’s another part of these relationships that doesn’t get discussed enough. We tend to think of mentorship as something that happens within an architectural office. A senior architect guides a junior employee, shares technical knowledge and helps them develop their professional judgment. But some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned have come from owners.
Mitch was one of those people. Over time, he became much more than a client. He became a mentor, although I don’t think either of us ever formally described the relationship that way. He taught me about fairness, about establishing expectations early and about the importance of approaching difficult situations as a team. He showed me that you can hold people accountable without making every mistake into a confrontation.
When we made an error, he didn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. We had to own it, understand it and put it right. But he also understood that one mistake didn’t erase all the good work that had come before it. His attitude was often remarkably simple: don’t do it again. And we learned from that.
There’s an important distinction here. Trust doesn’t mean removing accountability. It means creating an environment where people can acknowledge problems without immediately becoming defensive. That kind of relationship doesn’t happen overnight. It’s developed through consistency, honesty and the willingness to have difficult conversations before they become disputes. I still think about those lessons today, and I suspect I always will.
The Ribbon Cutting Should Be a Celebration
There’s something extraordinary about the opening of a new school. Years of planning, design, coordination, approvals and construction finally become a real place. Teachers are preparing classrooms. Students are walking through the doors. The community is seeing the result of an enormous collective effort. It should be a celebration. Yet I’ve seen how unresolved expectations can overshadow that moment.
An owner questions why something was designed a particular way. Staff discover that a space doesn’t function as they expected. Frustrations surface that could have been addressed much earlier. Sometimes those concerns are entirely legitimate. A new building doesn’t automatically mean every decision was the right one. But many disappointments begin long before construction, when the design team and owner aren’t sufficiently aligned on what success actually looks like.
That’s why the relationship matters so much at the beginning. You need to understand not only what the owner is asking for, but why they’re asking for it. You need to listen to the people who will operate the building, maintain it and occupy it. You need to explain the consequences of decisions, challenge assumptions when appropriate and make sure everyone understands what is being delivered.
And you need to keep having those conversations as the project evolves. Because the goal isn’t simply to deliver a building that matches a set of drawings. It’s to deliver a building that works for the people who will live with those decisions long after we’ve left.
Beyond the Drawings
This philosophy is part of what has shaped my thinking about Project Arc. We can build better tools for documenting decisions, tracking responsibilities, capturing lessons learned and keeping owners connected to the design process. Those tools have real value, particularly when project teams change or organizations undertake multiple projects over many years. But software cannot manufacture trust.
It can make information more accessible, help preserve institutional knowledge and reduce the misunderstandings that undermine good relationships. The human part still requires effort. It requires picking up the phone instead of sending another defensive email. Taking the time to understand why an owner is concerned. Having the uncomfortable conversation about a mistake. And occasionally, it requires leaving the meeting room and going for fish and chips.
Looking back, some of my favourite projects weren’t necessarily the biggest or most technically ambitious. They were the ones where the people involved genuinely enjoyed working together, respected each other’s judgment and wanted to do something worthwhile. Those are the relationships that stay with you. And they leave me with a question I think every architect, contractor and owner should consider:
