7 Questions Every Owner Should Answer Before Starting Design

Design is the cheapest place to make a decision and the most expensive place to avoid one. By the time drawings are in permitting, the answers below have already been decided — either deliberately by you, or by default through a hundred small assumptions made by other people.

1. What problem is this project actually solving?

Not what you are building. What it is for. A clubhouse built to attract new buyers is a different building than a clubhouse built to serve the residents already there.

2. Who decides?

Name the person who can approve a change without a meeting, and the group that cannot. Most schedule loss is approval latency, not construction.

3. What is genuinely fixed?

Budget, opening date, and site constraints are rarely all three. Decide which one governs before someone else decides for you.

4. What does success look like in numbers?

Cost per square foot, absorption, dues impact, utilization. If nobody can state it, nobody can protect it.

5. Who are we actually serving?

End users, boards, lenders, and future buyers want different things. Rank them now.

6. What is out of scope?

Exclusions are more useful than inclusions. Write them down.

7. What assumptions are we carrying?

Every early estimate rests on assumptions. Listed, they become risks you manage. Unlisted, they become change orders.

Work through these questions with your team before the first design meeting. The written answers become the brief every consultant is measured against.