Profitability in real estate is often discussed before construction begins and completely separate from the design team. Developers build the financial model, while architects are expected to produce the best building possible within its limitations. But many of the decisions that determine whether a project succeeds financially are in fact design decisions.
Laura Caicedo, an architect turned real estate advisor at Hayat Brown, a P3 and infrastructure advisory firm in Washington, D.C., has spent 12 years working across architecture, urban design and real estate. She believes three subjects should be discussed with the design team from the start: the program, the building's efficiency and where the budget is concentrated. These questions should not be resolved by the financial team and later handed to designers as fixed instructions, she argues, because architects are trained to solve competing problems simultaneously, and excluding them from the financial discussion can mean losing the possibility of a better solution.
