Thoughts on Difficult Clients

I haven't met any architect lucky enough yet to avoid Those Clients. You know the ones. The husband and wife that disagree on everything and put the team in the middle. The owner who meddles with the construction on site. The committee that can't make a decision. The client with an outrageously aggressive schedule.

Archdaily posted a cute graphic about some of the typical problem clients an architect (or really any design-based field) may run into. (Originally posted here on Digital Synopsis.)

A Field Guide to the Wonderful World of Clients, part I

What the ...: An Ongoing Series

That feeling when you draw a perfectly buildable detail that gets rejected in May, and then after much sound and fury pursuing the alternate detail, is revisited as the new idea in the following January.

I just ... it is so frustrating to deal with these changes and on top of the changes the bad attitude and nasty remarks from the client, and then END UP RIGHT WHERE WE STARTED NINE MONTHS AGO.

YOU CAN MAKE A NEW HUMAN BEING IN THAT AMOUNT OF TIME.

Stereotyping

I had a meeting last week with a client to review his custom wardrobe designs. We were looking at eyeglasses compartment inserts and comparing the standard sizes with the drawer widths in his particular closet to figure out how many eyeglasses he could store in the configuration the wardrobe designer was proposing.

He pulls out a pair of glasses from his pocket, folds them onto the table, and says "These are what, 9 or 10 inches wide?"

...

They were 5 inches wide, and it was all I could do to stop myself from laughing out loud.

What the...: An Ongoing Series

The kitchen consultant: "We want to make sure our client is ecstatic about the finished product."

~pregnant pause~

The architect: "I have a hard time imagining our client being ecstatic about anything. Maybe we should shoot for pleased, or satisfied."