An architect helps to design the dwelling unit and incorporate your lifestyle and needs in the process. Most architects should be trained to churn various types of designs but like artists, some of them would stick to a particular styling or two, styling that they prefer or have developed over the years and excel at doing so. In the architect you would want a partner who is not too overly obsessed in keeping to his design but one that has a genuine interest to make your dream actually come true.
Having said that, your taste in design would inevitably lead you to that person. Let me draw up an analogy. If you are looking for someone to stitch up a baju melayu, you can go to the Masjid Jamek area in downtown KL and find a tailor easily amongst the compact shoplots. Shops like Omar Ali is better known than the rest because celebrities and politicians endorse his work, like it or not that would add to his street cred and reputation. Omar Ali could also cut you a three-piece suit, just like the green in-house tailors at Jakel can to but why would you go to these people when perhaps Spark Manshop or Lord's could do it better?
Similar to tailoring, the partner that you want to be working with would very much depend on the architectural style that you like and just maybe on case-by-case basis, how much money you are willing to spend. If your taste in design is quite plain, any good architect in the country can attend to you. By that I mean if your desire is the typical tropical house (like most residential dwellings in Malaysia), then you shouldn't have a problem looking for an architect.
But if your preference looks like boxes of different sizes joined together or a wooden skeletal cube that seems to be hanging on top of a giant tree or something that your parents won't approve then there is a good chance that finding the architect who can hack that kind of work can prove difficult.
Again, the design that you wish for would ultimately point you out to the right architect but whether or not he is the right partner, it is quite impossible to tell at the first meeting. Chemistry takes time to build. Worse still is if it doesn't get built at all. But first up, where are these people hiding? Where do you start finding them?
Just like any other professionals such as doctors and lawyers, architects are not allowed by law to advertise what they are good at so don't hope to catch an ad in the press or magazines or TV. That pretty much leaves your options to only two: through word-of-mouth and of course, your favorite search engine on the Internet!
You will not find ads (because the rules extend to the world wide web as well) but personal blogs and websites are abundant, administered either by individual clients or the architects themselves. Simply enter the key words like 'architects in Malaysia' or 'Balinese home', you should suddenly be inundated with pages and pages of findings, as coughed up by Google or Yahoo. As far as locating them in this day and age, it shouldn't be much of a problem. That goes the same for their background and reputation; the said media should dish these out as well.
Referrals are another way to find your architect. Maybe you have relatives and friends who know of people who have built or in the midst of building their homes. First hand accounts on how good or bad the architect is will surely be shared. By the same token, you'll sure to hear stories about contractors too.
It makes practical sense to find out who this architect is. Use every avenue. Talk and meet with as many of them as possible. Look out for their principle and willingness to listen to you at the same time, unless you love justifying every little change you are asking on their design. Architects can be very stubborn.
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