What role does trust play when collaborating with a design partner?

When collaborating with a design and build partner, there are several things and reflections that a client can understand beforehand. Firstly, design taste is highly subjective. When your land plot is limited in size, opt for a compact yet accommodative home for the family’s habit and behavior. If the size is larger you can incorporate a design vision that serves an impression of your liking; whether to prioritize aesthetics in the facade or a specific direction like minimalist contemporary or bold and eclectic. When you are abundant in resources and space, the option to build a trophy house designed by a prominent figure starts to open.

With this variety of motives, trust serves a major role in the collaborative process. The aim is to find the most comfortable approach to grant submission and consent to your design partner, as they will be the one to execute the creative and technical process.

Trust starts with background profiling and visual compatibility tests before anything else. Once you have found a potential partner with proper credentials and taste in harmony, you may choose an approach of your liking.

A cold approach will require you to accept the professional diagnosis that your partner gives. Decisions and results are made independent of your point of view based on the site’s conditions such as wind direction, climate, potential for the building’s growth, etc.

A warmer approach will involve your partner to get intimate with you through personal questions as well as details on how you live on a day to day basis. Knowledge of routine behavior will be the base for decision and direction that the building takes. Your design partner, based on their expertise and maturity should be able to ask the right questions; Dos and Don’ts, Likes and Dislikes, Must haves – Good to Haves – Nice to Haves. These are the kinds of elements that they should be able to extract from their partners as it will determine how well they will serve them.

Both approaches require trust, and not one approach is better than the other. However at the end of the day it’s about which one suits best for your comfort. Trust lies in the total consent towards your partner at a cold approach. On the other hand, opening up to your design partner on a personal level is where trust plays a role on a warmer approach.