I have designed houses & buildings as well as employed architects for large commercial buildings on two occasions. The architect goes through a process to develop the plans & layouts with the customer then ensures that it is structurally strong, healthy environment, aesthetically pleasing and complies with all the applicable codes. Often they use a structural engineer, partners, interior designers and others depending on the depth of detail. The architect's fee may include some site visits as a due diligence that the construction is to the standards required. His licence & reputation is at stake so the designer will insure that it meets code. Should the construction not meet the standards of the drawings & codes in this jurisdiction then the designer can call the building inspector and have the job stopped until there is correction. I recently designed a public walkway & an elevated scenic lookout for a volunteer group to build. The plans were approved by the building inspector. I worked closely with the group & their contractor to make sure that it was built correct & safe. Drawing the plans was a gift to the group & to that small community. The work took a lot of hours to design & detail. My version of helping the same as pounding the the nails.
The design stays in the control of the architect for several reasons. It is the architect's intellectual property that protects the architect & client. If the house plans are built for Florida and sold to a friend in northern Minnesota the building may not work as the climatic requirements are different that significantly affect the building. The Florida house would not have the frost footings, insulation levels for cold or the structure for roof snow loads. The architect cannot assure the safety of the plans outside his sphere of control. The architect would not have any call for an exact set of plans that were developed in partnership with a homeowner with that owners unique set of conditions. A second owner of the plans trying to use the plans again may not have the plans accepted for the building permits as codes can vary between jurisdictions.
I have often been asked if I would draw a set of house plans then they show me the house plans in a catalog. They want a few minor changes where the plan service selling the plans would easily make the changes & the purchase costs would be significantly lower than employing anyone to draw them. An architect's services would be significantly more expensive.
Catalog plans are a reasonable way to go or look for companies that specialize in home plans as they are less expensive. All the fine print & boiler plate language for these services will be that they are for the sole use of the customer.
I have done a hand full of plans for friends as an aid in their getting a home built at a reasonable cost. It is a process that can drag on & be painful between a misty eyed wife building her dream & the other half trying to hold the costs. Once a couple see the first draft on paper then it usually goes through a battery of changes. Redrawing is easier in these days with ACAD. People often are spatially challenged & room sizes are confusing. I have taken people to an area to where we can put markers to represent the space so they can see it first hand. My close friend bought a set of plans and asked me to look at it. I told them their dining /living was small & they argued that they saw the display home. We did the measuring and layouts so they could see it in real size. They discovered that it was a model up that was the one they need & that it looked the same. They were only out the set of purchased plans and built the right house.
Working with couples to do a good job chews up a lot of time between meetings to develop layouts, finishes, details, revisions and issuing final drawings. Architects like lawyers, doctors, dentists and any other personal service professional are on the clock so their time is valuable. The time is expensive if squandered in a process of indecision. When doing large projects I budget between 7-10% for the consultants services depending on the complexity. The architects that I worked with on the large projects used structural & geophysical engineers for the bones of the project. The structural & soils engineers are the most demanding on seeing it built to the plans & the codes. Soils & structural engineers are the most heavily insured & sued group. I am personally responsible for the design of the buildings that I did. If my design were to have a catastrophic failure due to my error or a short cut by the contractor then it would turn into a legal furball where everyone goes broke. The design has to be 100% all the time for life safety & security so there is a lot of pressure on an architect & his team. The last thing anyone wants is a any failure that maims and kills. The architects take about 7 years in a wicked education program where only the select few make their professional certification. Architects have to be knowledgeable in a myriad of codes & knowledgeable to direct those whom he employs. An Architect may take longer than a medical doctor to achieve his professional status so they are not going to risk their reputation on someone's misuse of the plans.
I have got in to crazy structural discussions because someones friend did it. Why have I have I done this way or that where it gets stupid. I did friend's house plans where it was raised, expanded & a basement put under it. I spec'd three steel beams so one mid span post per beam. The contractor was pissed because he wanted wood beams that would have need 2 posts per beam. The owner sourced the steel beams and when it was done appreciated that he had one row of 3 columns and not two rows of 3 that would have screwed developing the basement.
In one case I spec'd microlam lintels over large windows as the economical solution with no deflection to crack the wide windows. The carpenter was squawking that it was expensive but it was only a few dollars more to protect $3k windows. The owner appreciated the purpose & had no issue with cost. It is knowledge, experience & practical perspective. I designed a super insulated slab on grade for the same fellow 30 years ago that 15 years ago is an accepted practice because of my interest in energy efficient buildings. The heat savings to the owner paid for the drawings a long time ago in this northern climate.
A franchise restaurant owner was given my name & asked for my help to look at a building addition with a large natural gas furnace & boilers to lower his heat costs. I talked hm into upgrading windows and increasing the fiberglass insulation in the roof trusses for a small fraction of the cost of the proposed building extension & HVAC system. His costs for heat & cooling dropped by thousands. A friend & I had designed the bones of the restaurant for the previous owners 35 years ago where we had the walls well insulated but the owner elected to use less efficient commercial windows. I got a couple costs of coffee and made a big difference for the owner. He was a franchise owners meeting and there was a request to the floor for suggestions to improve profits. The owner told me that he jumped up and gave the group a list of improvements to reduce the building operating costs by several thousands per year. He was really pumped when he was telling me & I think people thought we were arguing in the hardware store. Good building design can make a difference.
Best example of plans misuse. I had a fellow at work who built a house where there was no building inspector in his jurisdiction. He approached me one day to ask why his floor moved when the dog walked across it. He had a set of plans that required posts under the main beam in the basement. He did not want to install the posts so he could have a large open family room in the basement. A contractor friend told him that a laminated beam of 4-2x12's should do the span so he ignored the plans & built with no posts. I told him to pick up some teleposts on his way home from work and put them in immediately. He worked with our civil engineer to get some longer spans with plate reinforcements & for the placement of permanent columns & footings. He was lucky his house did not collapse in the 2 years that his family lived in it. The roof snow load design here is 62.5 lbs per square foot so if the dead load did not put the house in the basement then winter should have. A house 2 blocks over collapsed into basement during construction caused by the builders stupidity. A designer has to satisfy the codes & codes are the "minimum std of construction".
I am certified for mechanical & civil design where I worked as an industrial designer for a large plant. We designed it, built it in house or employed contractors and were appreciated for the work we did. The guys in our office occasionally would partner to design a local building as the next licensed designers are 4 hours away. We made a little money on the side providing stamped drawings, it helped local businesses & provided a valued service at a fraction of costs for the long distance consultants. We all stopped years ago as there are too many headaches associated with the work. Life is easy as in the plant, we estimate, budget, design it, acquire the regulatory approvals, manage the build and life is good. I don't even want to do my own house plans for an addition that the wife wants but I will.
From my 2 experiences with architects they earn their money, don't get the respect they deserve & the architect's work was top drawer.
This could go on for pages but this may give a designers perspective and the risks.
Glenn
Sarcasm is my architectural style of response(copyright-Playwme 2016)