Floor plan Bungalow 172 m2 in Brandenburg south of Berlin

Should this sentence provoke me? - after all, neither prefab/massive nor architect or general contractor are opposites, but can successfully be combined (as I have actually mentioned quite often).

Certainly not provoke. I probably phrased it a bit imprecisely.

My point was rather to say that some people ask themselves whether to work directly with a general contractor and others first or even entirely with an architect. Especially since everything can be designed and implemented individually in different ways, which is good on the one hand, but not exactly easy for a layperson when making decisions. After some research, my wife and I now feel better about starting with an architect.

With massive/prefab, there is no combination. As I said, I am Laure. I always thought you distinguish between either a prefab house or a massive stone-by-stone built house (with or without ETICS).

The architects' order books are in part jam-packed more than 12 months in advance. Such a single-family house is simply not very lucrative; the books are filled with multi-family houses and municipal projects, and those bring real profit. For such a single-family house, an architect has to spend a lot of time for a manageable profit, and on top of that, the clients are demanding. That is the current situation. Finding a good architect who will still take on a single-family house project is really rare and hard to find right now.

Good luck.

Thank you very much. Two architects have now also responded positively and want to talk with us. I think that the order situation can vary from region to region. Both are rather architects who primarily build single-family houses.

Thank you very much. Two architects have now also responded positively and want to talk to us. I think that the order situation can vary from region to region. Both are architects who primarily build single-family homes.

Maybe we can exchange ideas about this via PM sometime. We are located very close to each other regionally and unfortunately, we haven't had such good experiences. :( Thank you.

Let's put it this way, building with architects is like a tailored suit among dwellings. Very few people have the income and need for tailored suits. Good ready-to-wear is often sufficient. And those are prefabricated houses.

With solid/prefab there is no combinable. [...] So I thought you always distinguish either a prefab house or a solid stone-on-stone built house (with or without ETICS).

That’s what you’re here for, to learn something ;-)

"Massive" and "finished" are terms from the marketing confusion talk of the providers. With the adjective "massive" they want to emotionally suggest that only in a stone house the three little pigs could have defied the big bad wolf. With the adjective "finished" the wood frame panelers snap back and polemize with the image of the few weeks between the delivery of the wall panels and the arrival of the furniture van’s predecessor.

The cheap trick of invisibly completing the shell construction at the building site in a secret place beforehand (Jean Pütz would have said: "I have already prepared something there") cannot be done only with wood frame panels. But also with concrete panels, lightweight clay panels, or even stone-on-stone with porous bricks.

Likewise, solidity means nothing other than that the material structure is "solid" — which strictly speaking is even truer for the solid wood house (not to be confused with solid wood) than for masonry with porous bricks (due to the hollow chambers) or aerated concrete (basically a rigid foam). Home builders are private purchase decision makers: they are driven by emotion, and salespeople know how to exploit that. Viewed soberly, no construction method is the messiah, but neither is any of them the flood.

My personal amusement about the apprentice joke of pimping load-bearing interior walls with a Wonderbra to also use them as exterior walls, I assume here to be known. Incidentally, the wall structure of the typical wood frame panel "finished" house could also be called a "thermal insulation integral system" in marketing newspeak, since there is sort of an intermediate stud insulation installed there.

The wheel has not become any rounder over the millennia, thinking away the emperor’s new clothes: one ultimately only builds the house of Nikolaus either way, even if it is the house of Nikolaus Diestelmeier from the savings bank advertising. 2.0, 4.0, superior enhanced blue turbo: eye wash, the core of the matter always comes from the same transverse or longitudinal construction kit. The job of marketing is only to obscure that industrial products are also only cooked with water.

Maybe we can exchange ideas about this via PM sometime.

You know what a relay station is.

Let's put it this way, building with architects is like a tailor-made suit among dwellings. Very few people have the income and need for tailor-made suits. Good ready-to-wear is often sufficient. And those are precisely the prefabricated houses.

Is that so? I can't see any trend anywhere that building with an architect is more expensive. I often even hear that if planned smartly and if the client knows what they want and the building doesn't overflow with extravagance and decadence, you can't build more expensively or can even build cheaper than without an architect.

Perhaps this is because many people commission architects when they want expensive extras, high individuality, and costly materials. I have the feeling that the market is simply so opaque that it's hard to make any statements here.

When I read such generalized statements, I would like to see a good, sound argument that convinces me.