How to Compare Two Architecture Proposals That Look Identical

Almost every week somebody walks into our studio in New Town with two proposals printed out, both for the same plot, both promising a G+3 residence, both quoting a number that sits within about eight percent of each other, and the question is always the same, which one is better. The honest answer is that you cannot tell from what you are holding, because the two documents are describing different amounts of work in language that has been deliberately flattened to look the same, and the gap between them will only show up eighteen months later when one of you is still waiting on a sanction and the other has a slab cast.

We have been running Studio Contour since 2014 and have delivered 330-plus buildings across New Town, Salt Lake, Rajarhat and greater Kolkata, and in that time we have seen enough second-opinion files to know that the difference between two seemingly identical proposals is almost never in the elevation render, it is in four boring places, the area statement, the sanction scope, the exclusions list, and the stage at which money changes hands. Once you know where to look, two proposals that felt interchangeable start to separate very quickly, and usually the cheaper one gets more expensive on paper before you have even signed.

So this piece is not about design taste, it is about reading the paperwork like somebody who has to build from it, and it is written for a plot owner in New Town, Kolkata, Salt Lake or Rajarhat who is a fortnight away from committing several years of savings to whichever architect they pick.

Start with the area statement, because that is where the whole thing is decided

Both proposals will say something like 3,200 sq ft built-up, and that single number is doing an enormous amount of hidden work, so the first thing to do is ask each firm to break it down floor by floor, and to state separately the ground coverage, the total covered area, the floor area ratio consumed against what the plot is permitted, and what has been counted as free of FAR, because that last category is where the two documents will quietly disagree. One firm might be counting a stilt parking, a staircase headroom and a covered balcony as area you get, the other might be counting them as area you pay for, and neither is lying, they are just describing different buildings.

The catch here is that a builder-style proposal often quotes carpet-ish usable area to sound generous while the construction contract will later be billed on covered area, so you end up comparing a number that flatters against a number that governs. Ask both to state the same three figures in the same units, plot area, permissible covered area under the applicable rule, and proposed covered area, and if one of them cannot produce that in a day, you have learned something useful about how they work. We keep FAR and ground coverage rules for New Town and the corresponding setback and open space rules written out plainly for exactly this reason, because an owner who understands the setback his plot owes cannot be sold a plan that will not survive scrutiny.

The sanction scope is where the two proposals stop being identical

In New Town the plan goes through NKDA, in Salt Lake and the rest of Bidhannagar it goes through the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, in most of the older city it goes through KMC, and the three do not want the same thing from you. So when a proposal says approval assistance, that phrase can mean anything from preparing and submitting the full drawing set, replying to every query raised and seeing the sanction through, all the way down to handing you a PDF and wishing you luck with the empanelled professional you now have to find yourself.

Make both firms answer the same four questions in writing. Who prepares the submission drawings, who submits them, who responds to queries and objections, and who is responsible for revisions if the plan comes back. Then ask what happens after construction, because the sanction is only half of it, and the completion and occupancy certificate is the half that owners forget until the day they need it for a loan disbursal or a mutation. A proposal that ends at sanction and a proposal that ends at occupancy are not the same proposal even if the fee is identical.

Our own practice runs residential and commercial projects through the NKDA building plan sanction process regularly, and through the KMC building sanction process and the Bidhannagar route as well, so we can say from that working familiarity that most delays are not mysterious, they are the same handful of avoidable things repeating, which is why we wrote up the reasons building plans get rejected as a checklist rather than an essay. If a proposal in front of you does not mention query response at all, price that silence in.

Read the exclusions harder than you read the inclusions

Every professional proposal has an exclusions list and most owners skim it, which is exactly backwards, because the inclusions are broadly similar across any two competent firms while the exclusions are where the real cost difference is hiding. The usual suspects are structural design and detailing, soil investigation, MEP and plumbing layouts, electrical load calculation, working drawings and joinery details, site supervision visits, and interiors of any kind.

Take structure as the clearest example. A reinforced concrete frame designed properly against a stated soil report is a different building from one framed by rule of thumb, and on a New Town plot with soft strata that difference lands squarely on your foundation cost, so a proposal that excludes soil testing is not cheaper, it is simply deferring a number you will pay anyway with less information. Same story with site visits. Two visits a month and site visits on request are separated by a phrase, and on a fourteen-month build that phrase is worth a great deal.

Compare the fee structure, not the fee

Fees in Kolkata are quoted three ways, a percentage of project cost, a rate per square foot, and a lump sum, and the three are almost impossible to compare directly unless you force them onto the same footing. A percentage of project cost sounds fair until you realise it rises as the build gets expensive, a per square foot rate looks precise until you ask which area definition it applies to, and a lump sum looks safest until you find the scope it is fixed against was never fully written down.

The fix is simple, ask both to restate their fee against the same assumed built-up area and the same stage list, and to show what percentage of the total is released at each stage. A proposal that takes a large share before the first sanction drawing is treating your money as working capital, and a proposal that spreads payment across concept, sanction, working drawings, and site stage is carrying risk alongside you. We have gone into the arithmetic of this in our breakdowns of architect fees in Kolkata and architect fees in Salt Lake, and the pattern that holds is that the cheaper headline fee usually carries the thinner scope, which the owner then buys back in pieces at a worse rate.

Now compare the design, and compare it on the boring criteria

Once the paperwork is level you can finally compare the architecture, and the useful test is not which elevation you like, it is which plan will be comfortable in a Kolkata June. Look at where the openings are, whether the plan gives you cross ventilation on every floor or only on the front, how deep the rooms are relative to their windows because that governs daylighting, where the west wall falls, and how the terrace and the shading are handled. Two facades can look nearly identical while one of them cooks from two in the afternoon and the other does not, and no render will tell you which is which.

Then look at circulation, staircase position, how much area is being spent on passages, where the services shafts run, and whether the parking actually works when two cars are in it rather than one on a drawing. If a proposal includes 3D visualisation, treat it as a communication tool rather than as evidence, and always ask to see the plan behind the pretty image, because in our experience the studios that lead with plans and lead with numbers are the ones whose buildings behave well later. If Vastu matters to your family, raise it at concept stage rather than after, since Vastu-compliant design is a planning constraint and it is far cheaper to honour it in the first layout than to retrofit it into the third.

The one question most owners forget to ask

Ask who will actually be on your project. Plenty of proposals are written by one person and executed by another, and on a build that runs over a year that distinction matters more than any line item. At our studio the work is led by principal architect Sumana Kumar, who practises out of New Town and runs projects through the NKDA, KMC and Bidhannagar processes herself, and her view on this is straightforward, a drawing set is a promise about how a building will be made, so the person making the promise should be the person answering for it on site.

That is also why we tell owners to look at delivered work in their own locality rather than at a general portfolio, because rules, plot geometry and neighbour conditions differ block by block. A G+4 residence in Action Area II faces a very different set of constraints from a Salt Lake block plot, and an architect who has actually built through those constraints will say so in the first meeting instead of promising you everything. If you are still at the shortlist stage, our guides to working with an architect in New Town Kolkata and hiring an architect in Salt Lake and Bidhannagar walk through what to verify before you sign anything.

At the end of the day, two proposals only look identical while both are vague, and the moment you make them specific about area, sanction scope, exclusions and payment stages, one of them will start describing a real building and the other will start describing a hope. If you would like a second read on the two documents sitting on your table, or you want to talk through a new residential project or an interior fit-out on a plot in New Town, Salt Lake or Rajarhat, talk to us and bring both proposals with you, we will go through them line by line and tell you plainly what each one is actually offering.