On a house project, one architect usually does almost everything, and asking who the designer is seems pointless. The Urban Planning Code asks anyway, and gives three different answers: the general designer (proiectantul general), the project lead (șeful de proiect) and the author of the project. They can be one person or three. It is worth knowing which is which, because the law gives them different duties, and some of them must be written into the contract you sign.
The general designer: the firm you contract with
Article 433 defines it by contract. The general designer is the business providing architectural or engineering design and related technical consultancy, or a group of such businesses, that has contracted with the client or developer (para. 1). The contract may cover every specialty (para. 2), and the general designer answers for the services it provides, whether with its own people or through subcontractors (para. 3). It may in turn contract specialists for each specialty (para. 6).
Paragraph (5) gives it four main duties:
- to alert you to non-conformities and inconsistencies in the stage 1 documents, where the brief and feasibility are defined;
- to set, in stage 2, the level of verification needed per field and specialty, according to the building’s consequence class;
- to secure quality through its own system, with its own staff or by contract;
- to hand over for acceptance only designs that meet the brief, the technical regulations and the quality requirements and that, for consequence classes CC2, CC3 and CC4, have been checked by specialist verifiers.
Verification levels by class are explained in the article on the design verifier. The general designer may also send the design to verifiers other than those in its own quality system (para. 7).
Separate contracts? One designer becomes the coordinator
You are not obliged to sign with one firm. If you sign separate contracts per specialty, architecture with one firm, structure with another, building services with a third, Article 433 para. (4) requires one of them to take on the coordinator role and the project-lead position, and requires this to be written into each of the contracts.
That is the practical detail of the article: if you work with several designers, every contract must say who coordinates. A contract that is silent on it does not meet the requirement.
The project lead: the person running the team
Article 434 moves from firm to person. The project lead is the architect with signing rights, the interior architect with signing rights or the construction design engineer who leads the design team, either the full team with every specialty or the team for one specialty (para. 1).
They do what you would expect of a coordinator: plan the project and schedule it, organise the work, allocate resources, coordinate the team, keep in touch with you and with outside bodies, and coordinate and technically validate the specialty solutions, respecting the vision of the project’s author (para. 2).
Who can be project lead depends on the building:
| Building | Project lead | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Civil buildings | generally the architect; in the limited cases the law provides, the interior architect with signing rights | Art. 434 para. (4) |
| Buildings with specific programmes | may also be the design engineer, provided an architect with signing rights is in the team | para. (5) |
| Engineering, industrial, agricultural buildings | the design engineer or the architect | para. (6) |
| Green or public spaces, protective plantations | the design engineer, the architect or the landscape designer | para. (7) |
For a house, the row that matters is the first: the project lead is, generally, the architect.
The author: who made the concept
The third role is the easiest to confuse with the others. The author of the project is the architect, or interior architect, with signing rights who draws up the architectural concept, or the design engineer who draws up the engineering concept (Art. 434 para. 3). The concept follows the brief, the performance requirements and your requirements, but may not fall below the requirements of the Code and of the technical regulations.
The difference from the project lead shows in paragraph (2): the project lead validates the specialties’ solutions while respecting the author’s vision. In other words, the author sets the idea, and the project lead answers for keeping the rest of the team within it.
What you check, as the client
- In the contract: who the general designer is and, if you have several contracts, who coordinates, written into each.
- On the design documents: who signs as project lead, and whether they meet the professional condition for your type of building, from the table above.
- For classes CC2, CC3 and CC4: that the design handed over went through the required verification.
What the design for building authorisation contains, which these people sign, is described on the page about the PAC.
This article is analysis, not legal advice. Provisions are cited from Legea 169/2026, published in Monitorul Oficial no. 661 of 10 August 2026. Check your own situation with the issuing authority. Romanian legal terms are kept in the original, because the Romanian text is the one that governs.