The questions practices actually ask.
Answered directly. If something here is not clear enough to act on, ask us on the scope call and we will give you the same answer in writing.
Working with us
Send a scope through the form or by email. We return a mutual NDA within 24 hours, hold a 30-minute call within 48 hours to go through your files and standards, and issue a fixed proposal within two working days of that call. Production starts within five working days of your approval.
One bounded set. Most practices start with 10 to 25 sheets, or a single LOD 300 zone of a larger model. There is no retainer and no minimum term. If the first set works, we scale up. If it does not, you have lost one small deliverable rather than a quarter.
A fixed-scope project starts within five working days of proposal approval. A dedicated team takes about two weeks to assemble, because we assign named architects rather than whoever is free. If your deadline is tighter than that, say so on the scope call and we will tell you honestly whether we can hold it.
We work 09:00 – 18:00 CET, Monday to Friday. That is the same working day as every practice in western and central Europe, and within an hour of the UK and the Nordics. A message sent at 09:00 is answered before lunch, not overnight. We follow Albanian public holidays and publish the calendar at kick-off.
Then start smaller than you think you need to. Send one bounded set with a real deadline, keep your usual internal review, and judge the output against what your own team would have produced. Most first engagements with us are under 25 sheets, and that is deliberate.
Quality and liability
A licensed architect who did not produce the set reviews it against a written checklist before it reaches you. That covers the drawing register, title block and revision data, dimensional consistency, annotation against schedules, layer standards, sheet numbering, detail cross-references, and a clean model audit.
Two revision rounds are included in every fixed quote, and the proposal states what counts as a round. Corrections to our errors are never counted as a revision round and are turned around at priority. A change of design intent is a new scope, and we re-quote it rather than absorb it quietly.
No. We produce the drawings and the licensed architect in your jurisdiction signs and submits them. That is the correct legal arrangement in every European market we work in, and any production partner telling you otherwise is either misunderstanding the question or misrepresenting it.
You remain the architect of record and carry the design liability, as you would with any in-house drafter. We carry professional indemnity insurance for our own production work, and the certificate is available on request before you sign anything. Our liability and its limits are stated in the agreement.
Tell us at the 30% checkpoint rather than at delivery, which is exactly why the checkpoint exists. If a delivered set does not meet the standard in the proposal, we correct it at our cost. If it still does not, you do not pay for the sheets in question.
IP and confidentiality
You do. All models, drawings and derivative work are assigned to you on payment, with no retained licence and no authorship claim on our side. The assignment is written into the agreement rather than left to be argued about later.
Yes, and we sign it before you send a single file. Your template is fine, ours is available if you would rather not draft one, and either way it is mutual by default. Turnaround on a standard NDA is the same day.
No. Non-solicitation is a clause in the agreement covering the engagement and the period after it. We do not contract directly with your clients, we do not appear in front of them unless you ask us to, and we do not use them as references.
Only with your written permission, requested per project and never assumed. Everything shown on this site is our own delivered work through our parent studio, which is precisely why we can show it at full sheet size without asking anyone.
We work with multiple practices, which is how a production partner stays viable. Project teams are separated, files never move between engagements, and access is limited to the named team on your project. If you need an exclusivity clause for a specific market or client, ask on the scope call.
Technical
Revit and ArchiCAD for BIM, AutoCAD for drafting and conversion, Rhino and SketchUp for geometry, and Enscape or Twinmotion for visualization. Licenses are ours, on our hardware. If your office runs a version we do not have, we buy it rather than ask you to downgrade.
That is the default, not an extra. We adopt your template, title block, naming convention, layer standard and detail library at kick-off. We do not deliver work in a house style of our own, because a set that does not look like yours creates work for you rather than removing it.
Yes. We work inside your hub under your permissions so there is a single source of truth and a full audit trail. SharePoint, Dropbox, Egnyte and Nextcloud all work the same way. If you would rather we stayed outside your environment, we issue through a controlled transfer instead.
Through your hub where one exists. Where it does not, we use an encrypted transfer link with expiry and access logging. Models and point clouds go over the same route. We do not send project files over messaging apps or personal accounts, and that is a written policy rather than a preference.
We produce regularly to Eurocode, DIN, Bouwbesluit and NEN, and work within RIBA Plan of Work and HOAI Leistungsphasen structures. Where a municipal checklist governs the submission, we work from that checklist directly and annotate compliance against it, so your reviewer can follow it line by line.
Commercial
Every project is quoted individually against the scope you send, because a 20-sheet interior set and a 60-sheet mixed-use set are not comparable work. Sheet count or model scale, LOD, the standard you work to, turnaround and revision rounds drive the number. You get a fixed quote within two working days.
Cost of living and local salary levels in Albania, not superior efficiency. A licensed architect here is paid a fraction of the equivalent salary in Munich or Amsterdam while doing the same work to the same standard. We would rather say that plainly than dress it up as a process innovation.
Fixed-scope projects invoice 40% at kick-off and 60% on delivery, in euros, payable within 14 days by bank transfer. Dedicated teams invoice monthly in advance. Overflow blocks are prepaid and drawn down against a running statement you can check at any time.
We invoice without VAT under the reverse-charge mechanism for business customers in the EU with a valid VAT number, and you account for it in your own return. Your VAT number goes on the invoice along with the reverse-charge reference. For UK and Swiss clients we invoice without VAT as an export of services.
Still deciding?
Twenty minutes on a call answers more than another page of reading. Or send a scope and judge the fixed quote that comes back.
- NDA
- Within 24 hours
- Scope call
- 30 minutes, within 48 hours
- Fixed proposal
- Within 2 working days
- Production starts
- Within 5 working days of approval
Or email hello@orthograph.eu
