Architex

"We do appreciate the ability to respond to this homeowner’s review and take this opportunity to set the record straight for our future clients. We understand and sympathize with the owner’s emotional response to circumstances that arose upon completion of the design process. However, we do not believe there is any valid justification for the list of false claims and defamatory remarks aimed at principal Architect Tim Gallagher and Architex. We are extremely proud of our design process and methodology developed over 20 years in business. It starts with an ‘in depth’ meeting to review the owner’s goals, needs and requirements. In this project, we spent over three hours discussing the details of the owner’s large scale additions & alterations project prior to developing a design solution. Both concept level and full design phases of our work produced drawings reflecting the aesthetic vision and functional needs of the client ; no ego driven inspirations as suggested. Regarding documentation of the existing building, it is in fact a common practice and standard to make certain assumptions for unseen conditions such as the depth of underground foundation systems. We do not attempt to dig up and owner’s lawn to verify the depth of a foundation wall or footing anymore than we would tear open interior walls just to confirm the size and location of stud framing. There are occasional projects in which we may request that an owner or contractor perform some exploratory demolition to verify an unseen condition, but this is rarely done before completion of design level drawings. In this project, a general contractor developing an estimate from the design drawings verified that the bottom of the existing footing for the house was only two feet below grade level. An unfortunate circumstance as the house is susceptible to frost heave / movement. For the owner to make the comment that we should have known about the sub-standard pre-existing conditions is simply irresponsible. We sympathized with the owner at the time of discovery and upon request offered some ideas and solutions for working with the shallow foundation. The owner decided to avoid potential risks and opted to knock down the existing dwelling and rebuild a new custom home. The owner quickly requested another design proposal for this new project, so we certainly assumed they were satisfied with the quality of work through the two phases of design on the original project. We sent out a new proposal along with a detailed email discussing the start and timeline for the new design services. We apologize if the owner misinterpreted our communication as ‘disinterest,’ but the words “ I’m busy right now” were never spoken or written to the owner. We simply outlined how the new project would fit into our schedule of active and on-going projects. We at Architex are very well regarded for our proactive communication skills and are often complimented for truly listening to our clients wishes and goals while providing creative and cost-effective design solutions. We are disturbed by the unwarranted and defamatory comments of this homeowner and ask that our future clients take into full consideration the consistency of all the other member reviews."