Rus Architects/Renderers, Inc.

Rus is spectacular. He spent so much time with me even before I engaged him in the work. In my 20 years of working with architects, Rus was the absolute top of anyone I have worked with. You will be very impressed

Rus is very knowledgeable about permits for city of Chicago and was able to create permit ready plans and application. He sent out a structural engineer, at my expense, to assess and and recommend reinforcement for the foundation which I greatly appreciated. When you have a 100+ year old building, you want to be sure. He provided design options for the front and was able to recommend a general contractor as I was having trouble finding one for my job. He also noted that my front steps were not up to code and included correction in the plans. We are waiting for the city to approve the plans so we can get started. He was competent to do plans and navigate the permit process with the city of Chicago. However, our personalities did not match and it was more stressful for me than it should have been. It is Important to work with an architect you feel comfortable with.

We worked with Rus to devise remodel plans for our century-plus-old home. From day one, he was responsive, professional, and extremely helpful. He devised creative solutions to solve our space problems and quickly provided pricing sets of drawings to help us solicit bids from contractors. Once we had a contractor in place, Rus managed the permit application process masterfully from start to finish, including quickly completing detailed permit sets of drawings. It was a pleasure working with Rus, and I highly recommend him.

Rus Architects has been fantastic to work with. Rus is professional, courteous, responsive and talented. He has been incredibly helpful has we embark on a total renovation of our 114-year-old home. He has listened attentively to our needs and designed solutions that took what we asked for to heart but that are better than we could have imagined. 
His knowledge of the permit process and experience working with contractors have been invaluable. In addition to giving us amazing plans for our home, he has gone above and beyond by providing us with useful guidance on what to expect from the entire renovation process.
We look forward to working with Rus throughout the rest of our project.

Rus was easy to work with and came up with some inventive ideas. We would work with him again.

He designed the porch a couple of years ago and it was built immediately thereafter.  His design solved a lot of safety, access and drainage problems.   A few weeks ago when I was going to get a license from the City for a completely unrelated use at the building, my records showed that a final inspection had never been called for on the porch. So, I had the iron inspector out and he discovered not only that the construction was subpar, but that the contractor had not even followed Rus's plans.  He refused to pass it but said that if I could get a letter from the architect saying that the porch was sound as-built, that would be good enough for him.
I immediately contacted Rus and he immediately swung into action.  He explained to me that I needed to get the weld sizes in writing from the contractor, who in turn, needed to get them from the subcontractor who did the steel construction.  The contractor was stalling a bit but Rus kept the pressure on.  Then Rus did a site visit with a structural engineer who was able to detail all of the problems so that Rus could draw up some plans to retrofit the porch.
Rus even went above and beyond the call of duty to take it upon himself to appeal to the contractor to rectify the situation.  I wasn't even going to ask them because I thought I'd have to practically sue them to get them to admit any wrong-doing and I didn't feel like having that kind of conflict in my life.  Instead, I got a call from the contractor saying that Rus told him about the problem and that he would come out and fix it at his own expense!   When does THAT ever happen?!  I owe it all to Rus.

I had purchased a set of plans for a lot and needed an architect to simply place the design on the lot.  Rus did the research on the lot and determined that the set of plans that I had purchased would not fit on the lot because of setbacks and grading issues.  Who would know, Rus did.  Rus worked with me to modify the plans to fit the lot requirements - he figured out what had to be done - he made it seem so simple.  The re-design that Rus did for me had all the features that I wanted and was done on a schedule that covered the 'hiccup' from the 'off-the-shelf ' home plans - all for a very reasonable price (other architects I called wanted over $6,000).  Rus found ways to work in little sitting areas and a sunroom into my plans that are spaces that I love to use everyday.  Thank you Rus.

Rus worked with me and the contractor to create a workable, pleasing plan.