International Construction Law Review
A NEW DESIGN FOR EUROPEAN ARCHITECT LAW
DR STÉPHANIE VAN GULIJK1
Department of Private Law Tilburg University, The Netherlands
1. Tensions in the legal position of architects in Europe
Looking at the past and present law governing architects in Europe, two sources of tension may be observed. These tensions are merely legal, economic or a mixture of those. First, there is a trend that architects no longer exclusively dominate the European design market. The position of European architects in the construction process is weakening. In addition to the traditional design contracts, new market models have been developed (for example, turnkey contracts and design and build contracts). These contracts enable other service providers such as contractors, other consultants or other technical advisers, and real estate and project managers, to take charge of design activities in the construction industry. Furthermore, engineering and consultancy firms may take care of the design and then team up with other professionals to do the actual construction work. Sophisticated clients may have their own design teams and hire a building contractor to do the work.2 These new market models no longer fit the traditional design contract,3 which usually bases itself on the idea that an architect designs a structure (most often a building) that
1 Stéphanie van Gulijk is a lawyer qualified in The Netherlands and a researcher/lecturer in the Department of Private Law at Tilburg University. In December 2008 she obtained her doctoral degree by the book European Architect Law: Towards a New Design (Antwerpen/Apeldoorn: Maklu, 2008) which was reviewed by Sarah Lupton in this Review [2009] 26 ICLR 388. This article is adapted from that dissertation. Stephanie van Gulijk was also one of the authors of the Principles of European Law on Service Contracts (PEL SC), see J M Barendrecht, C E C Jansen, M B M Loos, A P Pinna, R M Cascao, and S van Gulijk, Principles of European Law Service Contracts (Munich: European Law Publishers, 2007).
2 See for these changing patterns, for instance, M A B Chao-Duivis and A Z R Koning, Veranderende rollen. Een inleiding in nieuwe contractvormen in het bouwrecht, Bouwrecht Monografieën No 21 (Deventer: Kluwer, 2001); Organisatie van Advies- en Ingenieursbureaus, Manifest—posities en rollen van advies- en ingenieursbureau’s in een dynamische markt (Den Haag, 2005) (hereafter: ONRI; M A B Chao-Duivis and J V Weijnen, Bouworganisatiemodellen en aannemings-contracten—Aandachtspunten voor contracten bij andere dan de traditionele werkwijze (Delft: Meinema, 1999); Centre d’etudes d’assurances, Aansprakelijkheid en verzekering van de architect: Europese stand van zaken (Brussels: Orde van Architecten, 2004) (hereafter: Centre d’études d’assurances, 2004); FIDIC conference 2004 (http://www1.fidic.org/conference/2004).
3 See for instance M A M C van den Berg, A G Bregman and M A B Chao-Duivis et al, Bouwrecht in kort bestek (Deventer: Kluwer, 2007), pp. 409 et seq. (hereafter: Van den Berg, 2007); M A B Chao-Duivis, A Z R Koning and R C E Leijgraaf, Aan het werk met bouwcontracten: Een overzicht van de meest gebruikte contractvormen en algemene voorwaarden (Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer, 2004), pp. 43 et seq.; S Furst and V Ramsey, Keating on Construction Contracts (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2006), para. 1—024 (hereafter: Keating, 2006); K Deketelaere, M Schoups and A Verbeke (Eds), Handboek Bouwrecht (Antwerpen: Intersentia 2004), paras. V.112—V.116 (hereafter: Deketelaere, 2004); R Saint-Alary and C Saint-Alary- Houin, Droit de la construction (Paris: Dalloz, 2003), p. 143 (hereafter: Saint-Alary, 2003); R Thode, A Wirth and J Kuffer, Praxishandbuch Architektenrecht (München: Verlag C H Beck, 2004), p. 299 (hereafter: Thode, 2004).
Pt 1] A New Design for European Architect Law
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