What should you look for in an architect's portfolio?

Whether the houses shown are built rather than only rendered; whether they are comparable in size to yours; whether the practice has a hand of its own; and whether anything is shown a few years after completion.

What belongs in a contract with an architect?

Scope broken into stages with separate prices and sign-offs, payment on completion of each stage, copyright and permitted uses, how revisions are handled and priced, and professional indemnity together with the licence number.

What should worry you when choosing an architect?

A price clearly below the market, a massing proposal offered before any questions about the plot or your life, a promise of a fast permit without knowing the municipality, and reluctance to discuss the construction budget.

Updated 7 October 2026

Choosing an architect: portfolio, contract, fee.

We are writing this as a practice that wants commissions, so apply the discount. It cuts both ways though: we also know what a problem looks like, because we have met clients arriving with documentation that could not be built.

Portfolio: what to actually look at

Whether the houses are built. A visualisation shows talent; a site photograph shows the design could be executed. A practice with renders only may be excellent: you just do not know it yet.

Whether they are a comparable size. A 500 m² house is a different problem from a 150 m² one, not the same problem enlarged. Structure, services, site logistics and the way the project is run all change.

Whether you see a hand or a fashion. A portfolio in which every house looks different can mean range, or that the practice draws whatever the client showed them on a phone. A conversation tells you which.

Whether anything is shown years later. A photograph of a house five years after handover says more than the shoot taken on completion day.

What to ask at the first meeting

Who will run my project: by name. In some practices the person you meet is not the person you then work with.
What exactly the fee covers: and what it does not. Survey, ground investigation, specialist reports, supervision, interiors, visualisations: each can be inside or outside.
How long each stage takes: and what happens when it overruns.
How many revisions are included: because there will be revisions.
How contact works: who answers a call from site, and how quickly.
Whether the practice actually wants the commission: it sounds odd, but a reluctant "we can manage it" after the first meeting is a poor start.

What belongs in the contract

Scope, broken into stages. Concept, building design, technical design, construction drawings, supervision, each with its own price and its own sign-off.

Payment on completion of a stage. Not everything up front, and never for something you have not yet seen.

Copyright and the permitted uses. What you may do with the design if you change practice or want to repeat it.

How changes are handled. How many concept revisions are included and how further ones are priced. This is the most common source of disputes.

Professional indemnity and licence. A Polish architect's licence number and chamber membership can be verified yourself in a few minutes.

Warning signs

A price clearly below the market: usually a narrow scope, with the rest arriving as variations.
No questions about the plot or about how you live, but a massing proposal straight away.
A promise of a permit "in two months" without knowing the municipality or checking the legal basis for building.
Reluctance to discuss construction costs. An architect who avoids the budget will design a house you cannot build.

One thing that outweighs the rest

Designing a house means a year or two of conversations about personal things: money, family, what you cannot stand about the flat you live in now. If you do not want a second meeting after the first one, no portfolio will make up for it.

If you do not want a second meeting after the first one, no portfolio will make up for it.

Łukasz Pastuszka, architect, co-founder of MOOMOO Architects

Sources

You can check the legal position yourself: the links go to the acts in the official Polish register and to Statistics Poland, not to somebody's summary.

We will check what fits
on your plot.

Let’s talk about your project