A Plainspoken Guide to the Roles of Your Design Team
You’ve got a project. Maybe it’s a medical office, a new restaurant, or a buildout in a strip mall that smells faintly of failed yogurt shops. Wherever you are in the process, one thing’s for sure:
You’re going to need more than “an architect who can draw it up.”
Let’s break down exactly what the different design professionals do (and don’t do), what they produce, and how they keep your project moving forward—and upright.
The Architect: Your Go-To Person, With the Most Emails
Your architect is the team captain. They work with you to figure out the following:
What you want to build
How it should function
What it should look like
How to get it permitted
How to coordinate all the other specialists
And how to not lose their mind when your favorite tile gets discontinued three days before pricing
Typical Deliverables:
Programming documents (a fancy word for “what you need and how much space does it take”)
Schematic design and concept drawings
Code analysis (to make sure your dream doesn’t violate 14 ordinances)
Construction drawings (floor plans, elevations, sections, details & specifications)
Assistance with permit submissions (can be limited, check with your architect before assuming anything)
Coordination of all other consultants’ work. (coordination doesn’t mean perfection, but we try to get close)
Real-life example: On a surgery center project, the architect aligns surgery rooms with sterile corridors, creates a welcoming lobby, and double-checks that patients aren’t exiting into the dumpster zone.
Civil Engineer: The Outside Guru
Civil engineers design everything that happens on your site before you even walk into the building. Parking lots, grading, stormwater ponds, utility lines, driveways, sidewalks, and whether water flows away from your building (highly recommended).
Typical Deliverables:
Site plans
Grading and drainage plans
Stormwater design
Utility connections and coordination with municipalities
Erosion control plans
Permitting packages for local authorities (which may include 800-question forms)
Real-life example: Your dream coffee shop can’t open because the sidewalk slopes just enough that someone might accidentally roll into traffic. Civil’s job is to try and catch that before construction.
Structural Engineer: The Gravity Manager
Your structural engineer is the person making sure your building doesn’t fall down—or tilt, or sway, or crack in half because you wanted a 30-foot overhang “because it looks cool.”
Typical Deliverables:
Foundation plans
Framing plans for floors, roofs, and walls
Structural details and connection diagrams
Structural notes for permitting
Calculations that contractors pretend to read
Real-life example: You want a wide-open living/dining/kitchen/game/bar room with no columns. Structural finds a way to do it using a beam the size of a minivan… and then politely asks the architect where they expect to hide said minivan.
Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) Engineers: The Systems Squad
MEP engineers are the unsung heroes who figure out how your building breathes, lights up, powers your machines, and gets water to your coffee maker.
Mechanical (HVAC): Heating, cooling, ventilation
Electrical: Lighting, power, outlets, fire alarms, emergency systems
Plumbing: Water, drainage, waste, gas, and maybe medical gases, if you’re in healthcare
Typical Deliverables:
HVAC duct layouts and equipment specs
Lighting layouts and fixture schedules
Power and circuiting plans
Plumbing riser diagrams and pipe layouts
Load calculations, code compliance docs, and enough abbreviations to fill a textbook
Real-life example: In a dental clinic, the MEP team makes sure the suction system works, the X-ray machines have power, and there’s hot water in the sinks without blowing the circuit when someone starts up the sterilizer.
So… Who Coordinates All This?
That’s still the architect’s job. Think of them as your design team general manager. While the engineers are solving specific problems, the architect is stitching it all together—catching conflicts, adjusting layouts, chasing down clarifications, and explaining why you can’t just put your HVAC unit on the roof without knowing where the structure can hold it.
Final Thoughts
As the project owner, you don’t need to know how to read a duct riser diagram. You do need to know who’s responsible for every detail, and that each of these professionals is vital to a building that’s not only beautiful, but also safe, comfortable, and code-compliant.
Just remember:
The architect is your design lead and point of contact
The civil engineer handles the outside world
The structural engineer fights gravity
The MEP team makes the building livable
And none of them want to redesign your project after you’ve poured the slab
Hire the right team early, let them do what they’re good at, and the result is a building that works—from the sidewalk to the ceiling diffuser.