PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 2

ADMINISTERING THE REGULAR

SERVICES OF THE ARCHITECT
THE FIRM: AN OVERVIEW
G R O U P 3
A G G A R A O G A N N A B A N J R .
A N G A N G A N M E N D E Z
B E L T R A N P A V I A
C A L L A P A G P R U D E N C I O
D U R A N S I N S A N O
B S A 4 B
 ARCHITECTURAL FIRMS
• Architectural Firm means a sole proprietorship, a partnership or a
corporation registered with the proper government agencies.
-Republic Act No. 9266
• Company employing licensed architects, offering architecture-related
services.
• Architecture firms may work for local, state, or national governments
or for private companies that want to build buildings.
• A typical architecture firm provides a range of design services, from
drawing up plans for a remodel to providing ground-up design of a
structure for a client.
 SMALL PRACTICE
SOLE AND SMALL FIRM PRACTICE
• SOLE PRACTITIONER ARCHITECT/SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP
 A Sole Practitioner Architect is a self-employed architect with no employees.
 Individual Architect practicing and delivering architectural services, duly
registered with the DTI, BOA and the PRC.
• SMALL FIRM
 Small firms consists of one to nine employees.
 Small firms may include one or two architects working together.
 A small architecture firm is like a team. It needs the sincere efforts of every
member to accomplish its goals. That way, young architects get to be part of
the decision-making process.
FIRM ORGANIZATION
• LEGAL ORGANIZATION
 An architecture firm’s legal structure is regulated by state laws. Generally,
a firm may select the legal structure that best meets its business needs,
but some states restrict the type of legal structure that a firm can assume.
 As licensed professionals, architects cannot rely on a firm’s legal structure
to protect them from professional liability. Legal counsel can help a firm’s
owners determine what legal structure (i.e., a sole proprietorship, a
corporation, a subchapter S corporation, a professional corporation, a
limited liability company, or a limited liability partnership) will best meet
the firm’s needs.
LAWS AND CODES
• R.A. 9266 – The Architecture Act of 2004
 Sec. 37. Limitation to the Registration of a Firm, Company, Partnership, Corporation or Association.
The practice of architecture is a professional service, admission to which shall be determined upon
the basis of individual personal qualifications. However, a firm, company, partnership, corporation or
association may be registered or licensed as such for the practice of architecture under the following
conditions:
a. Only Filipino citizens properly registered and licensed as architects under this Act may, among
themselves, or together with allied technical professionals, form and obtain registration as a
firm, company, partnership, association or corporation for the practice of architecture;
b. Registered and licensed architects shall compose at least seventy-five percent (75%) of the
owners, shareholders, members incorporators, directors, executive officers, as the case may be;
c. Individual members of such firm, partnership association or corporation shall be responsible for
their individual and collective acts as an entity and as provided by law;
d. Such firm, partnership, association or corporation shall be registered with the Securities and
Exchange Commission and Board.
FIRM ORGANIZATION
• FIRM START UP
A. Typology of Firm
The first and most basic step is to identify the
typology of your architectural firm. You must specify
the services that the firm would be providing to its
clients.
The second step is to identify the size of the firm. A
small, large or humongous firm is always dependent
upon the capital you have.

B. Get Registered As An Architect

The registration gives you the license to practice
architecture.
FIRM ORGANIZATION

• ORGANIZATIONAL CHOICES
Basic choices: sole, partnership, and corporation
Essential characteristics: formation, liability, owner
control, management, financial rights, liquidity, and
change/combinations
Planning considerations: economics of choice and
tax consequences.
FIRM MANAGEMENT
• PLANNING AND POSITIONING
Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy and
making decisions on how to allocate resources to pursue that strategy. To
determine the direction of the organization, it is necessary to understand its
current position and the possible avenues through which it can pursue a
particular course of action. Strategic planning generally deals with at least one
of three key questions:
• What do we do?
• For whom do we do it?
• How do we excel?
FIRM MANAGEMENT
• PLANNING AND POSITIONING
Positioning for Architecture and Design Firms shows how a design
firm—large or small, new or well established—can position itself to gain
greater control over its destiny, and reach loftier levels of achievement.
a. Learn about firm types, and match the right type to a firm's goals.
b. Develop and maintain a firm's identity in the marketplace.
c. Discover how organizational design and marketing support a chosen
firm type.
FIRM MANAGEMENT

• DESIGN EXCELLENCE AND QUALITY PRINCIPLES

Design Excellence is a term used in Environmental Planning Instruments (EPIs) to
refer to the design quality of a building or project and describes an expectation that a
project will achieve a level of design quality that is above and beyond the usual. It also
describes a variety of requirements and processes that are intended to support this.
The description of Design Excellence is broadly consistent across planning legislation
where it is often summarized as ‘the highest standard of architectural, urban and
landscape design.’ Design Excellence descriptions vary in their detail but include
references to context, accessibility, public domain, streetscape, massing and
sustainability.
FIRM MANAGEMENT

• DESIGN EXCELLENCE AND QUALITY PRINCPLES

 A good set of principles will be founded in the beliefs and values of the organization and
expressed in language that the business understands and uses. Principles should be few in
number, future-oriented, and endorsed and championed by senior management.
 They provide a firm foundation for making architecture and planning decisions, framing policies,
procedures, and standards, and supporting resolution of contradictory situations.
 A poor set of principles will quickly become disused, and the resultant architectures, policies,
and standards will appear arbitrary or self-serving, and thus lack credibility. Essentially,
principles drive behavior.
FIRM MANAGEMENT
• DESIGN EXCELLENCE AND QUALITY PRNCIPLES
 There are five criteria that distinguish a good set of principles:
1. Understandable: The underlying tenets can be quickly grasped and understood by individuals throughout
the organization. The intention of the principle is clear and unambiguous, so that violations, whether
intentional or not, are minimized.
2. Robust: Enable good quality decisions about architectures and plans to be made, and enforceable policies and
standards to be created. Each principle should be sufficiently definitive and precise to support consistent
decision-making in complex, potentially controversial situations.
3. Complete: Every potentially important principle governing the management of information and technology
for the organization is defined.The principles cover every situation perceived.
4. Consistent: The set of principles must be expressed in a way that allows a balance of interpretations. Every
word in a principle statement should be carefully chosen to allow consistent yet flexible interpretation.
5. Stable: principles should be enduring, yet able to accommodate changes. An amendment process should be
established for adding, removing, or altering principles after they are ratified initially.
FIRM MANAGEMENT
• ISO 9001:1994 (Quality Systems - Model For Quality Assurance
In Design, Development, Production, Installation And Servicing)
ISO 9001:1994 is a company level certification based on a standard
published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) titled
"Quality systems-Model for quality assurance in design, development,
production, installation and servicing“.
ISO 9001:1994 is a non-industry specific standard that gives guidelines on
how to implement and maintain a quality management system. The standard
lists clauses related to topics such as management responsibility, document
control, purchasing requirements and product identification among others.
FIRM MANAGEMENT
• TECHNIQUES FOR MANAGING QUALITY
 Quality management is the act of overseeing all activities and tasks which are necessary to
maintain or achieve a certain level of excellence in your organization. It consists of four key
processes:
 Quality planning – devising a quality management plan that describes the processes and
metrics that are to be used.
 Quality assurance - assuring, validating and exhibiting to the organization that you have the
abilities, skills, knowledge and attitude to achieve the desired outcome.
 Quality control – inspection, testing and measurement of project deliverables.
 Continual improvement – examining how the three elements above will drive further
improvements in efficiency and effectiveness.
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
• The management of work and people towards desired ends, is a
fundamental activity in any organization in which human beings are
employed. It is not something whose existence needs to be
elaborately justified.
• HR now focuses on strategic initiatives like mergers and
acquisitions, talent management, succession planning, industrial and
labor relations, and diversity and inclusion.
• In circumstances where employees desire and are legally
authorized to hold a collective bargaining agreement, HR will
typically also serve as the company's primary liaison with the
employee's representatives usually a labor union.
EXAMPLES OF ARCHITECTURAL FIRM
IN THE PHILIPPINES
• BUDJI+ROYAL Architecture+Design • Casas + Architects, Inc.
BUDJI+ROYAL is an architectural design firm Casas + Architects, Inc. is a multi-disciplinary
established by Royal Pineda and Budji Layug, architectural firm supported by an ingenious
born out of their creative collaboration that contemporary vision. Their body of work
began in 2001. The company prides itself on spans commercial properties, high-rise
bringing its signature organic modern style to residential condominiums, hospitality facilities,
the world. and institutional complexes that integrate
architectural integrity with natural
environments.
EXAMPLES OF ARCHITECTURAL FIRM
IN THE PHILIPPINES
• Buensalido + Architects • AMD Architects
Buensalido+Architects is an architectural, A Philippine-based architectural firm providing
interior, and urban design laboratory solely solutions so that people will have better living
committed to creating original, avant-garde, and and working conditions. The company is
progressive solutions. Founded in 2006 and led involved in projects around the Philippines that
by Principal Architect, Ar. Jason Buensalido, the focuses on space renewal for existing buildings
firm has committed to introduce fresh, bold, and - in the form of renovation or interior fit-outs.
innovative concepts.
POSITIONS
• Senior Principal/Partner: Typically an owner or majority • Architect/Designer III: Licensed architect or non-registered
shareholder of the firm; may be the founder. Titles include graduate with 8 to 10 years of experience; responsible for
president, chief executive officer, or managing significant aspects of projects; responsible for work on
principal/partner. minor projects. Selects, evaluates, and implements
procedures and techniques used on projects.
• Mid-Level Principal/Partner: Titles include executive or
senior vice president. • Architect/Designer II: Licensed architect or non-registered
• Junior Principal/Partner: Recently made a partner or graduate with 6 to 8 years of experience; responsible for
principal of the firm. Title may include vice president. daily design or technical development of a project.

• Department Head/Senior Manager: Senior management • Architect/Designer I: Recently licensed architect or non-
architect or non-registered graduate; responsible for major registered graduate with 3 to 5 years of experience;
department(s) or functions; reports to principal or partner. responsible for particular parts of a project within
parameters set by others.
• Project Manager: Licensed Architect or non-registered
• Intern: Unlicensed architecture school graduate under
graduate with more than 10 years of experience; has overall
supervision of an architect.
project management responsibility for a variety of project
management responsibility for a variety of projects or • Entry-Level Intern: Unlicensed architecture school graduate
project teams, including client contact, scheduling, and under supervision of an architect.
budgeting. (Also called Project Architect). These more junior • Student: Current architecture student working during
positions can also be referred to as Job Captain, Architect summer or concurrently with school.
Intern, Graduate Architect, Design Tech, Architectural
Designer, Project Designer, BIM Manager, etc.