How much does an architect actually cost? A line-by-line breakdown
A worked example of a 3,000 sq ft house, phase by phase, including the costs that sit outside our fee and the ones that do not.
Read noteBuildings shaped by daylight
Fieldwork is an architecture and spatial-design practice. One senior architect stays with your project from first sketch to handover, and every design phase has a fixed scope and a fee you can read before you sign.
- Fig.
- 01
- Project
- Arroyo Hall
- Location
- Pasadena, CA
- Year
- 2025
- Typology
- Cultural
- Private clients
Houses, extensions and restorations, led by the same architect you meet on day one.
- Developers
Feasibility to planning approval, with a design fee that is fixed before we start.
- Institutions
Schools, civic and public buildings, briefed with the people who will use them.
- Cultural organisations
Galleries, halls and performance spaces, where light and sound decide everything.
(01) Selected work
Eight buildings, five years, two coastlines.
Each project below opens with its facts and a short account of what we were asked, and what we did about it.
-
A single-storey house wrapped around a planted courtyard. Every principal room borrows light from two sides, and deep eaves keep the west sun off the living space through the hottest hours of the day. The client asked for a home that felt open without being exposed; the courtyard is how we got there.
-
The restoration of a nineteenth-century townhouse around its original stair. New marble floors were laid to match the tone of the old quarry, and a rooftop lightwell brings daylight to the ground floor for the first time in a century. The house is quieter, brighter and easier to live in, and it looks as if it has always been this way.
-
A community arts hall in board-formed concrete. A single north-facing clerestory washes the gallery in even, glare-free light, and the building steps down the slope to meet the arroyo. The brief was a room that could hold a wedding, a ceramics fair and a hanging show in the same week. It does.
-
A public stair is the lobby. Performance rooms sit off a broad concrete flight that doubles as informal seating and as a shortcut between two streets. The town wanted a cultural centre that did not close its doors at six; making the entrance a piece of public route was the simplest way to keep it open.
-
Headquarters for a product-design firm across three floors of a 1970s office block. New openings in the facade double the glazed area; desks moved to the perimeter and workshops to the core, so that nobody works more than eight metres from a window.
-
Creative offices on a former ironworks street. The existing window grid was retained and repeated on the new upper storey so old and new read as one facade. Inside, a continuous north-light strip runs the length of the building. Currently on site; completion is planned for early next year.
-
A disused concrete market hall reopened as a food hall and studios. The structure was kept and cleaned; new work is limited to glazing, services and a demountable timber mezzanine. Reuse saved roughly two thirds of the embodied carbon of a new building of the same size, and, more to the point, kept the hall recognisable to the people who shopped there.
-
Six foundry sheds converted into workshops and small-run manufacturing units, linked by an external concrete stair and a shared yard. Rents stayed within reach of the makers who were already on the street, which was the whole point of the commission.
(02) Approach
Four phases. Each one priced before it starts.
The usual worry is that architecture fees are open-ended. Ours are not. You get a written scope and a fixed fee for each phase, and you decide at the end of every phase whether to continue.
Fees shown are starting points for a single-family house of about 3,000 sq ft, in US dollars. Cultural, workplace and reuse projects are scoped the same way, and quoted in writing after Phase 01. No hourly billing, no percentage-of-cost surprises.
01 Brief & Survey from $9,500
- Duration
- 2–3 weeks
- Fee
- Fixed, from $9,500
We visit the site, model how daylight moves across it through the year, and test your budget against your wish list. You get a written brief in plain language.
- Site visit and measured survey
- Sun-path and daylight study
- Budget-to-scope reality check
- Written brief and Phase 02 fee
Your decision: approve the brief, or take the survey and walk away. Nothing further is owed.
02 Concept Design from $24,000
- Duration
- 4–6 weeks
- Fee
- Fixed, from $24,000
Two or three genuinely different options, each built as a physical model in our workshop. We review them with you around the model, not on a screen.
- Two to three options, each modelled at 1:50
- Plans, sections and a daylight comparison
- Early cost review with an independent estimator
- Recommended scheme and Phase 03 fee
Your decision: choose a direction, ask for one more round (included), or stop.
03 Development & Permits from $52,000
- Duration
- 8–14 weeks
- Fee
- Fixed, from $52,000
The chosen scheme becomes a buildable one. We coordinate structure, services and materials, and we take the application through planning and permit.
- Coordinated drawing set and detail book
- Materials and finishes schedule
- Structural and services consultants managed by us
- Permit submission and responses
Your decision: approve for tender. Changes after sign-off are quoted before work begins.
04 Delivery & Handover from $6,000 / mo
- Duration
- Through construction
- Fee
- Monthly, capped at an agreed total
The same senior architect is on site with the builder, answering questions before they become delays. At handover we walk the building with you and return a year later.
- Regular site visits by your architect
- Tender review and contractor questions
- Handover walk-through and care guide
- Twelve-month post-completion visit
Your decision: the monthly fee is capped when we agree it. If the build runs long, our fee does not.
(03) By the numbers
A small practice, on purpose. These are the figures we would rather you knew before you call.
- 2Studios
Los Angeles and Lisbon, one practice, one way of working.
- 1Senior architect per project
The same person, first sketch to handover.
- 6In-house model makers
Every scheme is built at 1:50 before it is rendered.
- 4Fixed-scope phases
Each priced in writing, and each with a stop-or-go decision.
(04) Studio
The person who draws your first sketch hands you the keys.
One senior architect
Every project has a named senior architect from first sketch to handover. There is no pitch team that disappears once the contract is signed.
Models before renders
Six model makers work in our two workshops. We test massing, light and material in physical form before we show you a polished image.
Fixed scope, written fees
You see the scope, the fee and the timeline for each phase in writing before it begins. If something changes, we say so first.
Obsessed with daylight
Every scheme is sun-path modelled from the first week. We can tell you what your kitchen looks like at 8am in December.
-
Mara Ostrander
Founding Principal · Los Angeles
Trained in Rotterdam and Los Angeles, Mara founded the practice in 2014 after a decade designing houses and galleries for other people’s offices. She leads residential and cultural work and still builds the first model herself.
-
Tiago Valente
Principal · Lisbon
Tiago runs the Lisbon studio and its workshop. A specialist in restoration and adaptive reuse, he spent his early career on masonry buildings in the Algarve and Alentejo, and is the reason we never demolish something we can keep.
-
Noor Adeyemi
Principal, Workplace & Making · Los Angeles / Lisbon
Noor leads workplace projects and oversees model-making across both studios. She came to architecture from furniture design, which explains the attention to how a room is actually used at half past four on a Thursday.
(06) Contact
Start a project.
Tell us about the site and a rough budget. You do not need a finished brief; a couple of honest sentences is enough to begin.
- 01
A senior architect replies within two working days.
- 02
A free 30-minute call, to see whether we are the right fit.
- 03
A written scope and fixed fee for Phase 01 within a week.
Prefer to write directly? hello@fieldwork.studio
Enquiry received
