Initial consultation / Architect selection

Your questionnaire sounds quite a lot like a speed dating checklist. A good single-family house architect does not have "& Partner, Essen / London / Tokyo" behind their name; they are a "solo chef" with a draftsman/drafter and a part-time office clerk, in any case hardly more than five employees. The question about the residential building share of the project portfolio is sensible - as far as you mean "single-family house" as a representative for owner-occupied houses, i.e., only in distinction to multi-storey residential buildings for investors. Multi-family houses with up to four residential units are not such a significantly different field of activity, so you can gladly include them as well. Regarding the approach, you seem to imagine a freelance architect too close to a general contractor (GC) who prepares the building application, but the work here is fundamentally different. For example,

How is the work done during the preliminary design? How many different designs/iterations are included?

suggests that you understand preliminary designs as discussion drafts before the application documents and want to know how much back-and-forth fuss à la Princess Shiny86 you would be allowed in the planning process. However, a preliminary design with a freelance architect is something entirely different, and it is a process step: the framework conditions of the development plan and the spatial program are then already finally clarified, and the result is recorded in ONE design. This is then discussed and, if necessary, changed. Then the preliminary design is developed into the design, and then into the drawing part of the building application as well as the working basis for the structural engineer, quantity and volume assessment, etc. Later, the executive plans are derived from the design plans.

Does the architect’s approach fit our ideas (e.g. service phases 1-4, then handover to GC vs service phases 1-9 vs architect as project manager)?

If after the building application the GC (and his "site manager") are supposed to take over, it seems to me that the purpose of a freelance architect is only half understood - the same applies to the interpretation of an architect engaged through service phase 9 as "project manager." When the drawings get the building authority’s “like,” the actual architect’s work really gets going.

That's just like DSDA :)

I'm curious who will make it to the recall with you

Thank you very much for the answers, but I don’t quite understand what is wrong with a structured selection of one of the most important parties involved in construction....

By preliminary designs you understood draft proposals before the application documents and wanted to know how much back-and-forth bickering à la Princess Shiny86 you would be allowed during the planning process. A preliminary design with a freelance architect is, however, something completely different, and it is a process step: the framework conditions of the development plan and the room program are then already finally clarified, and the result is recorded in ONE design.

That is also my understanding. My question was rather about the back-and-forth. On the way to the one design (in the preliminary design phase) there will certainly be several versions of the design.

If after the building application the general contractor (and their "site manager") is supposed to take over, it seems to me that the purpose of a freelance architect is only half understood – the same applies to the interpretation of an architect engaged through performance phase 9 as a "GC". Once the plans get the "like" from the building authority, the real architectural service really gets going.

Exactly that is my question. We already had a conversation some time ago with an architect whose preferred working model is "performance phases 1-4, then GC". One of the architects we will speak with next week apparently mainly works as a GC. But that is something different than performance phases 1-9 with individual contracts (where a GC might also be allowed to tender). Therefore the question. Basically, we are still open to all options at the moment.

Thank you very much for the answers, but I don't quite understand what is wrong with a structured selection of one of the most important people involved in the construction....

Nothing. but you can also overdo it. In the end, you have to get along with him. Not one, but you and your life partner*. That's called chemistry, sympathy... that has little to do with structure.

I understand it as you being worried about ending up with the "wrong" one. However, you probably won’t be able to simply get rid of this worry, just as every other home builder struggles with the choice of the general contractor or the prefabricated house company. Of course, you can read Google reviews, customer testimonials, etc., although none of that necessarily has to apply to your individual case... if what you read/heard was even genuine at all. You try to exclude some things by the number of employees and much more, but in the end, none of this says anything for sure. If you end up with the "wrong" one, it won’t matter what was said or written beforehand. I would actually like to be shown reference buildings in my "class" so that I can see his signature work, and I want to get a firm impression that the chemistry is right and that my ideas, even if sometimes strange, are considered or at least taken seriously at first.

That is also my understanding. My question was more about the indecisiveness. On the way to the one draft (in the preliminary design phase), there will certainly be several versions of the draft.

No. A "phase" as an exciting bullfight with thirty-five marked discussion protocols about the rotation of the staircase and the course of the partition wall between the parents' and children's bathroom does not exist with the architect. THE preliminary design (singular!) emerges in a structured distillation process from the ingredients "framework conditions" and "wishes." Between the preliminary design and the design, doors and windows are still shifted, and between the design (= submission plan) and the execution drawings, pipes, switches, and boxes. Architects don’t tickle princesses; architects design houses. Not as therapists, but as civil engineers with a degree in aesthetics. An indecisiveness as a substitute for a structured fundamental determination is not needed here because the method does this better than any dithering with counting rhymes and ring-around-the-rosies. The preliminary design is therefore not a "phase" like in the game "cat teases general contractor," but a structured process step between adults and architect.

We had a conversation with an architect some time ago whose preferred working model is "service phases 1-4, then general contractor."

Then forget this artist; he is not suitable as a support for a layperson. This is not a cook; this is a cold nanny. The general contractor drafting assistant will essentially only be surpassed in creativity by him. At least it is good if he is aware of his failure under combat conditions and voluntarily surrenders after service phase 4. The freelance architect unfolds his real advantages only when he accompanies the evolution from plan to house also as executive conductor. Moreover, a sensible architect will never exclude that a bidder can also submit an offer for all trades (= general contractor). However, the construction management is not handed over to the similarly named employee of the general contractor, as he pursues a different task.

I would actually like to see reference buildings in my "class" so that I can see his handwriting and I want to gain the firm impression that the chemistry is right and that my ideas, even if sometimes strange, are taken seriously or at least taken seriously at first.

Exactly. And all due care in "partner selection" aside, we are probably talking here about a normal family (?) without highly specialized framework conditions; the search for an architect should not be a more complex doctoral thesis than the actual building project.