DesignWorks was founded in January 2006 by James Harris, its principal.

Having over 10 years experience in architectural drafting, the idea for affordable custom Residential Drawings became a passion. Almost 2 years later, and that passion has turned into an established firm, while small, able to meet the needs of a wide range of prospective clients. Our main focus is Residential and Small Commercial Buildings. No job too small, all challenges welcome. We guarantee our plans to be code compliant and ready for permitting. As long as engineering is not needed to succeed, we will make the building department recommended changes, if necessary, to get your dreams moving forward. See us about larger residential projects as well, we are willing to talk about apartment and condominium design also! We are located in Vancouver, WA just across the Columbia River from Portland, OR. We use industry-standard AutoDesk Architectural Desktop 2007 to design and can read the files from almost all other CAD programs like Chief Architect and Pro/E and AutoCAD. Let us design the plans for your new house, apartment, condominium, or small commercial building.

Is DesignWorks an Architectural Firm?

No.

DesignWorks is a design firm. We consist of trained drafters that have experience with or have worked under the supervision of licensed Engineers and/or Architects for multiple years.

The benefit to a designer rather than an Architect is mostly cost. For most homeowners, a designer is all that they need. The homeowner knows what they want as do most small commercial building owners. All the owner really needs is to get it down on paper so they can apply for a building permit.

An Architect works better for those who don't want to be hands on in the design process. If you wish to work with an Architect instead of a designer, call us anyway, we have many architects on retainer and would love to link you with an architect in your area, or one with the expertise you are looking for.