Cari Designs Architecture - Berkeley, California

Alex M.

Stay away if you respect your finances and don't enjoy lighting money on fire. Cari will not respect your investment. She quoted us $19k for a project we've paid more than $52,000 for, including for an egregious error on her part that cost us $10,000 and a 6 month delay.

Cari originally quoted us $19k a 600sf kitchen/bath/bedroom addition. She let us talk ourselves into a 1200sf 2 story remodel, which we submitted to the city, only to have our neighbors object. Ok, not her fault, but by this point we'd already spent $25k, well over budget for the original project and still no approved plans.

We then brought her exactly what we wanted on a napkin, based on the original 600sf footprint. She had designed a custom butterfly roof over the addition. Here is the unforgivable error:

Cari's recommended contractor suggested we do some "value engineering" to make a simpler roof. Cari and the cotnractor said we should replace the entire roof (old house and new) with a redesigned new roof, and that this would be cheaper construction than the butterfly roof (trusses vs hand cut beams) and save us money. This was all "value engineering" after all, and they were the experts!

Turns out when you remove and change the roof design over a structure, that structure has to be to code, meaning our entire foundation would need to be updated. Something Cari and her team absolutely should know.

Instead, we paid Cari and the engineer for new plans and waited 6 MONTHS while they went back and forth with the city, before admiting to their mistake. $10,000 later, we'd scrapped the "value engineering" idea and went back to the butterfly.

Did we have struggles that weren't her fault yes. But over a nearly 2 year process working with her I can tell you that
a) she was ALWAYS happy to charge us for work rather than talk us out of bad ideas and
b) she is not willing to take ownership of for the value engineering catastrophe.

So, we have paid for the 1st design we couldn't use, and the 2nd design we literally handed to her on a napkin, and for a design that was never feasable. A total of $52k to this point. Even though she the original plans were with the city and we'd done all the work twice with them now, Cari still found another $4k worth of charges I'm now being forced to pay an under threat of a mechanics lien. Do not make my mistake and STAY AWAY!

Tana C.

Cari and her team are great.They took our vision and created more than we even thought possible! Easy to communicate with, responsive, and helpful are all ways that we have enjoyed working with them. She also referred the contractor we have hired. We highly recommend CDA for your project!

Chris C.

I’ve referred Cari many times in the past and I’m always happy to do so. Not only is Cari a super smart and talented architect, but she’s a great communicator. You’ll understand the schedule, the process and most importantly, you’ll be happy she’s working with you.