Growing up playing the Sims almost every weekend and holiday makes me dreaming to have my own home. I even apllied for an architecture major back in college. Thankfully, soon my dream will come true. I will have my own home. It takes longer time than what I plan, but it's okay. 

Me and my husband don't have any experience in designing nor building anything (house in this case), so we decided to hire an architect to take care of it. We looked for an architect who also can build the house, not only drawing it. Most of the time the architect only draw the design of the house. Then the client will have to look for the contractor, who will make the house based on the drawing. We think it will be less hustle for us if we look for an architect who has their own contractor. We also think that the contractor can interpret the design very well if both of the architect and the contractor are often working together.  

Who tought looking for an architect will be difficult. It is like finding 'the right person' for marriage. Finding someone who will commit for the long term relation, building the house. However, based on my experience, I conclude some important points while looking for it. 

• Use the social media for peeking up their portofolio. Nowadays everything is getting easier. We can get anything from the social media. For me, I used instagram for browsing the architect. Firstly, I randomly searched #arsitekjakarta and #rumahminimalis on Instagram. If I found some interesting house that I like, I shared with my husband. We checked the portofolio, whether it's matched with what we want or not. If it's matched, we contact the architect. 
• Ask people for the recommendation. We also asked our friends who works in the same industry. We thought maybe they have some reccomendation who is good on it. After we got some names, we checked their portofolio. Most of them are using Instagram to show their works. 
• Contact more than one architect in the same time. After having some names, we contacted them. Asking some questions: how much is their cost? Do they have their own contractor? Is there any recent work that we can see and it is not on Instagram yet? etc. While contacting them, it is better to contact 2-3 different architects to save some time. So you have other options if the first one doesn't work. 
• Meet them in person and see their recent work. It is important to talk in person. We can see whether we can work together or not after meeting in person. Well, today meeting in person might be impossible but we can use the technology, video call. Furthermore, ask to see their recent work, the real house. So you can see the quality of their work. We contacted bunch of architect but only met 3 of them. Then we went to 5 houses. All the houses are made by different architect. We even met the owner of the house and had chit chat regarding the process of their house.