Wow so much information Wendy, thank you!!!!

OK, I've gotten some more information on this now.

From the NCBDC: "A Certified Professional Building Designer is a non-licensed design professional that has been tested by the National Council of Building Designer Certification on competency in residential design and light commercial. Therefore, a "CPBD" would be able to do work in any state whose architectural laws have exempted architectural work."

Basically, what this means is that most states have some exemptions in the architectural practice acts that allow non-licensed individuals to do architectural work in *some* circumstances. These will vary by state, and then sometimes even by municipality within the state, so even if the state allows someone who is not licensed as an architect to design these buildings, a given municipality may, in fact, elect to require one in that area.

The rest of the information given on this page pertained specifically to Illinois law, so I won't repeat it here, especially because I suspect that most of the members of this group are in California - but it *clearly* did not *require* a CPBD designation, either. Essentially, *anyone* who does not hold an architectural license would be exempted from the licensing requirements in the particular situations noted.

Basically, you'd have to research the state act wherever you are, and then the requirements of your particular location, to find out whether or not someone who is not licensed as an architect would, in fact, be eligible to design what you have in mind, and at most, that would mean small residential (probably under 5,000 square feet) and very light commercial buildings like sheds. Then it gets even more complicated if the usage type of the building changes after it's built, as in goes from being a residence to a business location.

Apparently in *some* locations that require an architect where the state law does not, the NCBDC has been successful in getting the CPBD certification accepted as an alternative to architectural licensing, but the details of this are unclear, and it appears to only apply to a few small communities in the entire country, such as one town in Texas, and another in Mississippi. This is not exactly what I'd call widespread acceptance of this designation as actually meaning anything, at least at present.

Note that according to the information I've received, there is no requirement that people who design buildings that do not require architects actually have *any* particular training or certification - so your cleaning lady or goofball mechanic cousin could one day hang out a shingle as a "building designer".

They'd still have to get the plans they drew up approved by the building department if they were going to go by the book and pull permits for the construction, and odds are someone who really didn't know what they were doing would have a heck of a hard time doing that, but a lot of even perfectly legitimate contractors will go far out of their ways to entirely shirk the permitting process, meaning it's entirely possible that certain kinds of construction work could get done with virtually *no* oversight by anyone who actually knows what they're doing structurally, so just a word to the wise about this.

It would be hard to hide an entirely new building going up from the local inspector, but additions and alterations such as an addition to the back of a house might never come to his attention - and *you* might be stuck with something that may actually not even stand up as a result.

If all you're doing is cosmetic changes and nothing that affects structure, the potential consequences are usually dramatically less serious (although they may still be quite costly), but when structure and foundation work are involved, mistakes and lack of appropriate oversight and attention to codes could be catastrophic and fatal.

I don't know about you folks, but I'd far rather pay a licensed architect or engineer to make *sure* that anything I might design or desire to build would actually stand up and function properly than risk the roof falling in on my head. Making major mistakes in the process of design and construction is invariably *far* more costly in the end than hiring whatever appropriate design professional is applicable to a given situation.

Now, all this said, from a professional point of view, and coming from an architecturally-focussed educational background myself, I can now better understand why someone who only wanted to design small houses might choose to go the certified building designer route instead of architecture school. Basically, it's just a particular niche in the industry, and for someone who knows for sure that that's all they want to do, and particularly if they are well-informed about the laws in any state and locale in which they might want to practice, it doesn't seem unreasonable. I suspect it would be harder to find a job in other states if the laws differed dramatically, though, without the architectural license.

You can contact NCBDC at info@ncbdc.com or visit www.ncbdc.com to learn more.

>> It is of course wise advise to seek LEGALLY AUTHORIZED personnel but that in itself does not guarantee quality or even competence in many cases. It can and unfortunately often does, merely indicate someone who takes tests well... <<

Very true, Stephen - but it *should* at least indicate a minimum level of competency - and perhaps even more importantly, may provide some legal and financial recourse for someone who is injured or otherwise harmed as a result of substandard work done by such a person.

No, not all architects do award-winning design by any means, but they *should* all at least be minimally competent. The architectural licensing process is quite grueling, and involves a great deal more than taking a test. It involves a 5 year bachelor's degree (or 2 years' master's *after* another design-related degree), plus several years of supervised internship, and then a very long and grueling test that weeds out a lot of people. Then continuing education is required on a regular basis in order to retain that licensure.

As to how your friend and his father got their houses built, that may be more a question here in CA of the Contractor's State Licensing Board laws, but also perhaps the architectural ones. In CA, one can do pretty much any construction one wants on one's *own home* without a contractor's license, at least if they did the hands-on actual construction work themselves, and my guess now is that this is also exempt from the architectural licensing laws. Lord only knows we see enough tract crap going up in this state that you *know* no architect ever had a hand in because of how badly designed they are, so an exemption for residences would explain that, although with commercial builders, I'm sure they must at least use engineers even if architects don't design the houses. Your friend and his father could have gone that route too - he would do the design, and then have an engineer stamp the plans, and then everything would be hunky dory whether he built it himself or not.

Anyways, thanks to whomever mentioned this designation, because I've certainly learned something new.

Wendy