Massachusetts Architect seal requirements: size, wording, and the rule that sets them

Yes — Massachusetts registers architects rather than licensing them, and the seal says so. 231 CMR 4.02(1) requires each person registered to practice architecture in the Commonwealth to procure and use a rubber seal the design, arrangement, size and working of which shall conform exactly with the figure printed in the regulation, except for insertion of the registrant's own name, registration number and city or town. That figure carries REGISTERED ARCHITECT around the top of the outer ring and COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS around the bottom, with the registration number on a line prefixed "No.". "Licensed Architect" and "State of Massachusetts" are both wrong here. (231 CMR 4.02(1) and figure)

Yes, and it is the element most often dropped. 231 CMR 4.02(1) requires insertion into the figure of the name of the city or town from which the architect is registered, alongside the registrant's own name and registration number, and requires further that the seal of an out-of-state registrant also show the name of that registrant's state, province or territory. Nothing of the kind appears in 250 CMR 5.03(1), the format rule for professional engineers and professional land surveyors — the place line is an architect element and only an architect element. (231 CMR 4.02(1); 250 CMR 5.03(1))

The regulation states no number. 231 CMR 4.02(1) requires the design, arrangement, size and working to conform exactly with the figure printed in the rule: the figure is the specification, and it carries no dimension or measurement annotation. The 1-5/8 inch figure quoted for Massachusetts architects appears in no board rule. The "approximately one and one half inches" outside diameter often borrowed for it is 250 CMR 5.03(2), which belongs to the Board of Registration of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. (231 CMR 4.02(1); 250 CMR 5.03(2))

Not on the strength of any rule. 231 CMR 4.02(1) prescribes a rubber seal, and M.G.L. c. 112, § 60F requires all plans, specifications and reports prepared by a registered architect or under the architect's supervision to be "stamped with the impression of such seal". The permission to use a digitized seal — expressly, a computer generated image — is 250 CMR 5.03(2), a rule of the engineers' and land surveyors' board. 231 CMR contains no electronic seal or digital signature provision for architects at all. (231 CMR 4.02(1); M.G.L. c. 112, § 60F; 250 CMR 5.03(2))

Only in the three cases 231 CMR 4.01(5)(a) allows, and reviewing the work afterwards is expressly not one of them. The architect may sign and seal technical submissions personally prepared; or prepared by another architect duly registered in Massachusetts or by another design professional licensed or registered here — the rule defines that as a professional engineer, registered land surveyor, registered landscape architect, licensed plumber or licensed electrician — where the sealing architect reviewed the work and either coordinated its preparation or integrated it into their own submissions; or prepared by another person under the sealing architect's responsible control. Paragraph (d) states that reviewing, or reviewing and correcting, technical submissions after they have been prepared by others is not sufficient in and of itself to constitute responsible control, and 231 CMR 4.02(3) forbids permitting or suffering the seal to be affixed to anything outside those cases. (231 CMR 4.01(5)(a), (b) and (d); 231 CMR 4.02(3))