Bidding and Negotiation
The contract documents may be either bid by a number of contractors, or negotiated with an individual builder. The architect will help you choose what is the most appropriate for your project and then help evaluate contractors. Bidding requires time and organization, to ensure each contractor gets the same information throughout the process and gets his or her questions answered in a timely way. Negotiation means the architect must have a working knowledge of building costs as well as a thorough knowledge of the specific needs and potential problems of the project.