REVEALED: Unfortunate design architecture fails | Rare Historical Photos

Architects aren’t gods who can just go in and do whatever they want; there are rules they have to abide by. It’s not uncommon for architects to get sued for their poor projects, and, judging by the number of badly executed designs on this list, some architects really deserve to answer for their crimes against aesthetics and practicality.

There’s no single statistic that tells us exactly how common it is for architects to get sued. However, American insurance companies claim that 60% of the claims they receive against architects and engineers have become increasingly severe in recent years. The lawsuits end up costing insurance carriers a pretty penny, as 82% of them have to pay out multi-million-dollar sums.

If architects don’t want to get sued, they probably shouldn’t build houses and condos. These are two types of buildings for which architects are most often sued. Between 2013 and 2022, 23.9% of all claims against architects involved houses or townhouses, and around 13% involved condominiums.

House projects may be the most common to bring architects to court, but condominiums are usually the lawsuits that end up costing the most. A common deficiency in condominiums, townhouses, and apartments is water intrusion. It affects multiple residents in a single building, and they often band together to bring the developers to justice.

For architects, there’s something called the “Standard of care.” It’s the golden rule that professionals abide by, meaning an architect’s job isn’t to deliver perfect results but to adhere to the standards and regulations for safe buildings.

The Young Architect Academy likens it to a professional chef cooking a steak. It’s impossible to deliver a perfectly-cooked meal every time, but a chef always uses proper technique, follows food safety guidelines, and thus meets the standard of care. An overcooked steak isn’t negligence, but failing to follow food safety rules would be.

In that metaphor, are the stairs that lead nowhere similar to an overcooked steak or a steak that has salmonella? We’ll let you be the judge of that one, Pandas.

Architects’ mistakes can be costly, and not only when the company they work for gets sued. Sometimes changes need to be made during construction. The Construction Industry Institute (CII) estimates that correcting design errors and omissions costs companies around 3% of the project’s entire cost. And while that doesn’t seem much, keep in mind that most projects cost multiple millions.

Architects say there are three types of changes they make when doing projects: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

1. The Good are the changes that homeowners and residents are usually happy about. They increase the home's value or even make the building cost less than initially projected.
2. The Bad changes are the ones that architects don’t foresee. These include common underground issues, unavailable construction materials, and late deliveries.

1. Yet, The Ugly upset residents the most. They’re the mistakes architects and design professionals make and have to address to finish the project in compliance with safety regulations.

Still, experts estimate that design professionals are “perfect” 95% to 97% of the time. That probably means that the entries on this list are the remaining 3-5%.

What’s the worst crime against architecture and interior design that you’ve ever seen, Pandas? Share your design nightmares with us in the comments! And if you feel like you need some eye bleach in the form of gorgeous architecture, check out our previous publications about the times architects create something extraordinary, and marvel at these dream homes people would love to live in.