By Christopher Smith, founder and lead designer, Woodsmith Construction. Red Seal carpenter and BCIN-licensed designer, qualified in the Small Buildings category. Designing and building renovations, additions and custom homes in Toronto’s east end since 2001.
It usually comes up in the first conversation. Someone is standing in a hundred-year-old kitchen in Riverdale or East York, thinking about opening it up or going up a floor, and they ask a version of the same question: do we need an architect for this?
The honest answer is no — and the more useful answer is that it’s the wrong question. What an older Toronto home actually needs is someone who knows what’s behind the plaster, what it costs to deal with, and who will still be standing there when the wall comes down. Sometimes that’s an architect. On the work we do, it usually isn’t.
I should be straight about where I’m standing while I say that. We are not architects. Woodsmith is a design-build company: we hold the licence to design your renovation and we bring the crew that builds it. That combination is the whole argument of this article, and it’s only fair you know it before I make the case.
The legal part, which is shorter than people expect
For a single-family or semi-detached house, an architect is not legally required. Not “not required because your house is small enough” — the size test doesn’t apply to a one- or two-unit home at all. Ontario’s Architects Act exempts residential buildings of not more than three storeys containing one dwelling unit, or two attached units built directly on grade, with no floor-area limit attached.
What the law does require is that whoever prepares your permit drawings is qualified. Under the Building Code Act, no one may prepare a design for a building permit application without the qualifications to do so — in practice, a Building Code Identification Number in the right category, or a licence from the Ontario Association of Architects or Professional Engineers Ontario. Architects and engineers are carved out of the BCIN requirement because their own licences already cover it. In Toronto that’s the Schedule 1 Designer Information Form, required for every designer except engineers and architects.
The one limit worth knowing on a house, because it’s the one that can actually apply: three storeys. Both exemptions stop there. If you’re adding a third floor to a two-and-a-half-storey house — genuinely common on our streets — that’s a conversation to have early rather than late.
That’s the regulatory answer for a house. Everything that actually matters about this decision is not a legal question.
What “BCIN Small Buildings” actually covers
BCIN stands for Building Code Identification Number. Designers qualify by category, by passing the Province’s Building Code examinations and staying registered with the Ministry.
I hold Small Buildings, which is the broader of the two residential categories and automatically includes House. Small Buildings covers the full scope of Part 9 of the Ontario Building Code — currently O. Reg. 163/24 — which means buildings up to three storeys and 600 square metres of building area (that’s footprint, not total floor area), across residential, business, personal services, mercantile, and medium- and low-hazard industrial occupancies.
In plain terms: not just houses. Small multi-unit residential, small commercial, and mixed-use buildings within those limits all sit inside that qualification. The House category alone can’t handle a building with more than one major occupancy, or one occupancy stacked above another, or the suite separations that come with multiple units. Small Buildings can.
You can verify any designer’s registration and category yourself on the Province’s public registry. I’d encourage you to — for us or for anyone you’re considering.
The line most people get wrong on a multiplex
Here’s a distinction that trips up almost everyone writing about this, and it matters if you’re thinking about a fourplex or sixplex conversion.
The Building Code and the Architects Act measure buildings differently. Part 9 uses building area — the footprint, the greatest horizontal area of the building. The Architects Act uses gross area — the total of every floor above grade, added together.
So a three-storey building on a 400-square-metre footprint is 400 square metres of building area and 1,200 square metres of gross area. It sits comfortably inside Part 9, which means Small Buildings is the correct designer qualification for the Code. But it blows straight past the Architects Act’s 600-square-metre gross-area exemption — and because the units are stacked, the one- and two-unit exemption doesn’t help either. On that building, an architect is legally required. In that particular band — residential, over 600 square metres gross, three storeys or fewer — the Act reserves the work to an architect specifically. Not even a professional engineer can substitute.
Where does that leave a real Toronto project? A three-storey fourplex on roughly a 2,150-square-foot footprint lands right around the line. Below it, we can take the design. Above it, you need an architect, and we’ll tell you that on the first visit rather than the fifth.
I think that’s worth explaining properly, because the alternative — a designer who doesn’t know where the line is — is how projects get months into drawings before someone at the counter says no.
Pretty pictures don’t equal amazing buildings
Here is the thing I’ve watched happen for twenty-five years.
A homeowner falls in love with a set of drawings. The renderings are beautiful. The light is perfect. Then the project goes out for pricing, the numbers come back at a figure nobody was prepared for, and the redesign starts. Rooms shrink. The glazing gets value-engineered. The cantilever that made the whole thing sing turns out to need a steel beam and a new foundation under it, and it quietly disappears. What gets built is a compromised version of a design that was never costed against reality in the first place.
The drawing was never the problem. The drawing was lovely. The problem is that a design isn’t finished when it looks good — it’s finished when it can be built, for a number someone will stand behind.
Design in 2026 demands precise costing and a real understanding of construction. Material prices have moved hard, trades are booked out, and the margin for a fantasy budget is gone. A design that can’t be priced isn’t a design yet. It’s an intention.
The number an architect can’t give you
We know what things cost because we buy them and install them. Not from a database, not from a cost consultant’s average, not from what a similar project went for two years ago — from the invoices on our own jobs, this year.
That changes what happens at the design table. When someone asks whether to go up or out, we’re not estimating; we’re recalling. A second-storey addition on an older east-end home commonly lands between $440,000 and $750,000, and we can usually tell you in the first conversation which end of that your house is likely to sit at, and why — because the reasons are structural, and we’ve been under enough of these houses to recognise them.
I don’t mean that as a criticism of architects. It’s a description of a structural difference. Someone who designs but does not build has no mechanism for knowing what their design costs, other than asking someone who does. The feedback loop that would teach them isn’t there. We get that feedback on every job whether we want it or not, because we’re the ones who have to deliver at the price we quoted.
The practical result is that the budget conversation happens at the start, when it’s still cheap to change your mind, instead of after the drawings are finished.
How the fee actually works, and why ours doesn’t scale
This is the part nobody explains, so it’s worth being direct about.
Architects’ fees in Ontario are negotiated, not fixed. The Ontario Association of Architects doesn’t publish a fee schedule of its own — it points clients to the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s A Guide to Determining Appropriate Fees for the Services of an Architect, an advisory document, and the OAA’s own standard client-architect contracts leave the percentage blank for the two parties to agree.
But the structure is consistent, and the structure is the point: the fee is a percentage of construction cost. Which means it scales. The bigger your build gets, the bigger the design fee gets, automatically, whether or not the drawing work grew with it.
Two things are worth knowing about how that guide treats work like ours. Custom houses sit in its highest fee category. And the 2009 edition said this about renovations, plainly:
“The sliding scales are not suitable for many renovation projects… It is recommended that renovations to existing buildings be performed on a time basis.”
It went further, noting that where a percentage fee is used on a renovation it needs to be increased — some provincial associations recommending an adjustment factor of 1.65. The architects’ own fee guidance says percentage pricing doesn’t fit renovation work well, and that renovation work should carry a premium when it’s used.
We don’t charge a percentage. Our design package is a flat fee, typically $15,000 for smaller scopes, up to a maximum of around $30,000 for very large builds. It does not scale with your construction budget. It is all-in.
And it covers more than a drawing set. Design doesn’t stop when the permit is issued — it continues right through construction, as the real conditions of the building turn up, at no additional charge. Selections and interior decisions are usually handled inside the package too; most clients arrive with a clear picture of what they want from inspiration images, which makes that work straightforward to fold in. A fuller interior design service is available in-house for an additional fee if you want it, but most projects don’t need it.
The efficiency is not a trick. It exists because we’re also the builder. We’re not producing a document to hand to a stranger for pricing — we’re producing the information we need to build your house, and you’re not paying twice for the same thinking.
The gap between the drawing and the build
The single most expensive thing in a renovation isn’t materials or labour. It’s the gap between the person who designed it and the person building it.
When those are two different companies, there’s a seam, and problems fall into it. The detail that doesn’t quite work in the field goes back to the designer, who is now on another project. The builder waits, or makes a judgement call. If it goes wrong, each can point at the other, and the homeowner stands in the middle holding the bill. Every change order is a small negotiation. Every ambiguity is somebody’s opportunity.
In design-build, that seam doesn’t exist, because there’s nobody to hand off to. The person who drew the detail is in the same company as the person framing it. When something unexpected turns up behind a wall — and on these houses it does — the decision gets made that day, by people who own both halves of the problem.
This is the part clients tell us afterwards they didn’t understand going in, and the part that saved them the most.
On a century home, experience beats draftsmanship
Most of what determines how an older-home renovation goes is invisible on the day you sign the drawings.
Whether the foundation is brick or concrete, and what that means if you want to lower the basement. Whether the rear addition was ever properly tied to the original house, or is just leaning against it. Whether there’s water in the ground, and whether the soil is clay — which behaves very differently, and much worse, when you start digging next to a footing. Whether the joists are full-dimension lumber running the way you assumed. Whether there’s knob-and-tube in the ceiling you were planning to leave alone.
None of that is drawn. It’s expected, or it isn’t. And the difference between a renovation that runs to plan and one that doesn’t is almost always whether the person who planned it anticipated the conditions — not whether they drew them elegantly.
Knowing what to expect isn’t a talent. It’s an inventory of houses you’ve already opened up. Ours is in the east end, on this housing stock, and it’s why our drawings tend to survive contact with the building.
Where the engineer comes in
Design-build doesn’t mean doing everything in-house, and it shouldn’t.
All of our structural design is done by a professional engineering firm we work with on every project. That’s standard practice and it’s not a limitation — beams, spans, load paths, foundations and anything where the structure of the house changes go to the engineer, and they take responsibility for that design. It’s the same arrangement any competent builder or architect uses.
It’s also, in some cases, the law. Since January 2025, underpinning a foundation requires a professional engineer for both the design and the general review — on a house, at any size. If you’re lowering a basement, an engineer is involved, full stop. That’s worth knowing before someone quotes you a basement conversion without mentioning it.
Where the drawing meets the City
There’s a second place the design-and-build split shows up, and it costs months rather than dollars.
Toronto’s plan examiners aren’t reviewing whether your renovation is beautiful. They’re reviewing whether it complies — and on older homes, a permit application routinely triggers a zoning review of the whole house, not just the part you’re changing. Conditions that have stood for eighty years get pulled into scope. That’s how a straightforward addition ends up at the Committee of Adjustment, adding months and real cost.
Designing with that in mind — knowing which choices invite a variance and which don’t, and what the examiner will ask for — isn’t an aesthetic skill. It’s earned at the counter. We cover the permit process in detail elsewhere; the short version is that your drawings should be shaped by someone who’s been through the review repeatedly, recently, in this city.
Woodsmith Insight: The most expensive drawings we ever see are the cheap ones. A design produced without real costing, without knowledge of the building’s actual condition, and without regard for how the City will read it isn’t a bargain — it’s a bill you haven’t received yet. By the time it arrives, the money’s spent and the options are gone.
When you genuinely should hire an architect
I’d rather be straight than absolute, and there are projects where I tell people to go get one.
Over three storeys, the exemptions we’ve described stop applying. Stacked multi-unit buildings over 600 square metres of gross area require an architect specifically, as covered above. Assembly buildings — restaurants, daycares, places of worship — are outside Part 9 entirely in Ontario and need an architect and an engineer at any size. And if what you want most is a distinctive architectural statement, and you’re prepared to run a separate construction tender to get it, that’s a legitimate way to build. Some beautiful houses come out of it. It just isn’t the model we run, and it isn’t what we’d recommend for a hundred-year-old semi with an unknown foundation and a firm budget.
If your project is one of those, we’ll say so on the first visit.
What this actually looks like
We start with feasibility, not drawings. Structure, foundation, zoning, and what you’re actually trying to achieve, before anyone draws a line. The design that follows is costed as it develops, so the budget conversation is continuous rather than one bad afternoon at the end. Our engineer handles the structure. The permit set is prepared by the same company that will build from it. And when the wall opens up and something unexpected is behind it, the people solving it are the people who designed it.
That’s the whole proposition. Not that we draw better than architects — that we draw as builders, for a price we have to live with.
If you’re weighing a renovation on an older east-end home and you’re not sure what your project needs, get in touch. We’ll tell you honestly, including if the answer is someone other than us. You can also read more about how we approach design or about renovating in Old East York.
About the author. Christopher Smith is the founder and owner of Woodsmith Construction and leads the company’s design work. He is a Red Seal carpenter and a BCIN-licensed designer qualified in the Small Buildings category, and has been designing and building renovations, additions and custom homes in Toronto’s east end since 2001. Woodsmith is HCRA licensed, Tarion certified, and a RenoMark member.
Frequently asked questions
For a single-family or semi-detached house, no. Ontario’s Architects Act exempts residential buildings of not more than three storeys containing one dwelling unit or two attached units built directly on grade, with no floor-area limit. What the law requires is that your permit drawings are prepared by someone qualified — a BCIN-registered designer in the appropriate category, an OAA architect, or a PEO engineer.
A designer holding a Building Code Identification Number, issued by Ontario’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Designers qualify by category after passing the Province’s Building Code examinations. The BCIN is what allows them to prepare and take legal responsibility for the drawings submitted with your building permit application.
House covers detached, semi-detached and row houses. Small Buildings is broader — it covers the full scope of Part 9 of the Building Code, meaning buildings up to three storeys and 600 square metres of building area across residential, business, mercantile and light industrial uses, including multi-unit and mixed-use buildings. Small Buildings automatically includes House. Woodsmith’s founder and lead designer, Christopher Smith, holds Small Buildings.
Within limits, yes — but the limits matter. A Small Buildings designer can design a multi-unit building inside Part 9. However, the Architects Act measures buildings by gross area (all floors above grade combined), and a stacked multi-unit residential building over 600 square metres gross requires an architect specifically. A three-storey fourplex on roughly a 2,150-square-foot footprint sits close to that line. We’ll tell you which side of it you’re on before you spend anything.
Usually, but the more useful difference is how the fee is structured. Architects’ fees are typically a percentage of construction cost, so they scale as the build grows. Our design package is a flat fee — $15,000 for smaller scopes up to about $30,000 for very large builds — and it doesn’t scale with your budget. Notably, the RAIC’s own fee guide has said its percentage sliding scales are “not suitable for many renovation projects.”
Yes, and we use one on every project. All of our structural design is done by a professional engineering firm — beams, spans, load paths and foundations. It’s standard practice. And since January 2025, underpinning a foundation legally requires a professional engineer for both the design and the general review, on a house of any size.
There’s no seam. When the designer and the builder are the same company, a detail that doesn’t work in the field gets solved that day by people who own both halves of it, and nobody can shift blame across a contract boundary. Most renovation cost overruns and delays live in exactly that gap.
Not with us. Design continues through construction as the building’s real conditions emerge, at no additional charge — it’s included in the design package fee.
When the project is over three storeys, when it’s a stacked multi-unit building over 600 square metres of gross area, or when it’s an assembly building like a restaurant or daycare — those sit outside Part 9 in Ontario entirely. Also when a distinctive architectural statement is the main goal and you’re prepared to tender the construction separately. We’ll tell you if that’s your situation.
