One of your very first challenges after deciding to build your own home will be design. Here you’ll have several different options. If you’re like most people, you have no degree in architecture and have probably never built a house in your life. Maybe you’ll want to dive in and learn how to draft blueprints. Probably you won’t. If you bought your lot from a developer, there could be an easy solution. Many of the lots sold in gated communities come with restrictions on what you can build, but lucky for you some also come with a selection of three or four different house designs. In this case, the initial design phase of building your own home is mostly a matter of picking the one you like best. Then you’ll sit down with an architect (again, possibly a professional recommended by the developer) and customize the boilerplate by making decisions on windows, furnishings, colors, and internal floor plan layout.

If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to hire an architect or a structural engineer registered with Costa Rica’s Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y Arquitectos (Federated School of Engineers and Architects, CFIA). All building designs in Costa Rica must, by law, contain the signature of a CFIA-registered professional. This is true even if you’re going to design the building yourself or bring in a foreign architect, though in that case, you don’t have to bring in the CFIA-registered professional until the plans are ready to be submitted for permitting.

Which architect you end up selecting will depend on essentially three things: your taste in design, the amount of money you want to spend, and the location in which you’re building.

Design: Certain architectural styles have become common enough in Costa Rica – neo-colonial or modernist steel-and-concrete, to give two examples – that you shouldn’t have problems finding an architect with similar designs in his or her portfolio. But a more adventurous concept will require a more experienced and creative architect, both for the design and the execution.

Cost: The base rate for an architect is between 4% and 20% of the cost of the construction as determined by the CFIA, depending on what you contract him or her to do (see chart below). The good ones can and do charge much more. Pulling off the aforementioned complicated design may require you to go to one of the more renowned architects in the country (Bruno Stagno, Ronald Zürcher, Victor Cañas), which will, of course cost more, although not as much as it would to hire a similarly-renowned architect in other parts of the world.

Location: If you don’t have the funds to spend a lot on a traveling architect and you’re building in an out-of-the-way location, you might be limited to hiring an architect from the area. That’s not necessarily such a bad thing. Places like Turrialba, La Fortuna, and Guanacaste – all far from the Central Valley – have produced some good architects, or attracted architects from other parts of the country.

The easiest way to find an architect is to find a house that you like and ask who built it. After looking at several buildings by the candidate architect, you should and sit down with him or her for several rounds of interviews. Not only do you have to make sure you like the architect’s style and that the architect does a good job, but you also have to find if your personalities go well together. As one final piece of advice, be sure to get references. People are generally very vocal about the architects they’ve hired, and good references are a great sign. Below is a mockup of the fees an architect can charged based on minimum CFIA rates. Rates are expressed as a percentage of the value of the construction:

You can hire your architect for some or all of the tasks listed here, depending on how much you trust your contractor. As a final side note, in Costa Rica, certain kinds of CFIA-certified engineers are also qualified to work as architects. Though their design sense isn’t always the best, you’ll end up with a solid building.

Once you’ve found an architect, the degree to which you depend on that person to design your home is up to you. The architect is your employee, and can be as involved – or uninvolved – in the design phase as you wish. This is a bit tricky. On one hand, perhaps you know what you want, in terms of size, number of bathrooms, lighting, ceiling height, or floor plan. On the other hand, the architect knows things you don’t about the mechanics of what makes a solid building. Even if you’re a licensed architect in another country, local architects will have knowledge about local building materials, building techniques, and weather and soil conditions that you would do well to heed. There are moments, however, when you should stick to your guns. Most architects have signature styles that they will try to push, which is not all bad. But before entering these discussions, you should be clear in your own mind which features of your home design you are will to compromise (sliding doors? bathroom size? laundry room arrangement?) and which ones you would like to keep at any cost (vaulted ceiling? balcony? hot tub in the dining room?).

Finally, be sure to take your lot’s surroundings into account as you work on your design. What direction does the wind come from? Where does the sunlight enter? What is the best way to take advantage of a view? Is it temperate enough to live without air conditioning? Does it get chilly enough at night to warrant a wood-burning stove?