Professional Practice
Professional Practice tests how an architect is appointed, paid, coordinates consultants, administers contracts, and records decisions. For SLIA Part I, focus on the architect’s role between client, contractor, and authorities. You should know appointment stages, scope, fee agreements, tendering, interim certificates, variations, and final accounts, using Sri Lankan practice and standard forms such as CIDA/SLIA contract documents where applicable.
Core rules and concepts
- Define the appointment in writing: scope, deliverables, fee basis, reimbursables, time, and limitation of liability.
- Tendering must be fair and transparent: same information to all bidders, recorded addenda, and no bid manipulation.
- The architect administers the contract; the architect certifies, issues instructions, and values work, but does not act as arbitrator.
- Keep contemporaneous records: site instructions, minutes, RFIs, measured quantities, and photographs.
- Variations require instruction, measurement, valuation, and authorisation before execution where possible.
Worked example
A contractor claims extra payment for 20 m³ of concrete after a client changes a slab level. Check the instruction trail, confirm the change is not contractor error, measure the net additional work, apply the BoQ rate if valid, and adjust for preliminaries only if the change extends time or resources. Avoid paying the same item twice through a new rate and an existing measured item. Issue a valuation and certify only the approved amount.
Traps
- Beginning work without a signed appointment or fee agreement.
- Certifying payment without measurement or supporting records.
- Accepting oral instructions that are never confirmed.
- Treating the architect as the client’s agent for every commercial risk.