What is design supervision in Poland?

The designer's presence during construction: resolving ambiguities in the documentation, issuing supplementary drawings, agreeing substitutions and judging whether a departure from the design is material.

How does it differ from the client's inspector?

Design supervision answers for the design intent; the client's inspector answers for the client's interest: quality, measurement, programme and payments. Two different roles and two different people.

Is design supervision mandatory?

Usually not for a single-family house. The site manager is mandatory. Design supervision is a separate contract and a separate fee.

Who decides whether a change on site is material?

The designer. An immaterial change needs only their note in the site documentation; a material one requires an amendment to the building permit.

Updated 7 October 2026

Design supervision: what the architect does on site.

Design supervision (nadzór autorski) means the designer stays present during construction so that the house being built is the house that was designed. It is not quality control, not site management and it does not replace the client's inspector. Those roles are separate, and it is worth knowing which is which before signing any of the contracts.

Who is who on a Polish site

Site manager (kierownik budowy): runs the site and is answerable for safety and for building in accordance with the design and the regulations. Mandatory.
Client's inspector (inspektor nadzoru inwestorskiego): looks after the client's interest: quality, measurement, programme, payments. Often optional on a single house, usual on a larger project.
Designer under design supervision: answerable for the intent: resolving ambiguities in the documentation, agreeing changes and judging whether a departure from the design is material.

What supervision actually involves

Resolving ambiguities. Even good documentation does not describe every situation on site. "How is this meant to work here" goes to the designer rather than to a contractor who will otherwise guess.

Supplementary drawings. A detail nobody could foresee, or a solution once the ground turns out different from the survey. It is produced during construction and forms part of supervision.

Classifying changes. A departure from the design can be immaterial: then a designer's note in the site documentation is enough. It can be material: then the building permit has to be amended. Judging which way it goes belongs to the designer and is one of the most consequential moments of the whole build.

Materials and substitutions. The contractor offers "the same thing, cheaper". Sometimes it genuinely is; sometimes it is a different colour, a different texture and a different way of ageing. Supervision settles it.

Attendance at key stages. Structure, elevation, joinery, finishes. Not daily: at the moments where the decision cannot be undone.

What it does not cover

Accepting works, measurement, settling accounts with the contractor, programme control and liability for workmanship. Those belong to the site manager and the client's inspector. A designer who starts doing them stops doing their own job.

Why it usually pays on a premium house

The more of the house is drawn as detail: stairs, joinery, joints, transitions between materials, the more places there are where the contractor has to understand the intention, not merely read a dimension. On a simple catalogue house supervision can be a formality. On a house whose elevation is concrete and whose windows have concealed frames it is the difference between the visualisation and what actually stands there.

How we price it

Separately from the design, because not every client needs it, and we say plainly when they do not. The scope is fixed in advance: how many visits, how questions from site are handled, who calls and how quickly they get an answer. Supervision without an agreed routine turns into a phone call at ten in the evening, or three weeks of silence.

Design supervision is not quality control. It is judging whether the change the site is asking for is still the same house.

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.

Polish Construction Law. Act of 7 July 1994

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