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

Yes, and the wording is the architect's own. 8 NYCRR § 69.5 requires that to all plans, specifications and reports to which the seal of an architect has been applied there shall also be applied a stamp with appropriate wording warning that it is a violation of the law for any person, unless acting under the direction of a licensed architect, to alter an item in any way. The engineers' and land surveyors' version, in Education Law § 7209(2)(a), names a licensed professional engineer or land surveyor instead — so a warning copied off a consultant's sheet points at the wrong profession. If an item bearing an architect's seal is altered, the altering architect affixes the seal and the notation "altered by" followed by the signature, the date of the alteration and a specific description of it. (8 NYCRR § 69.5; cf. NY Education Law § 7209(2)(a))

No. 8 NYCRR § 69.5 allows the name of the licensee above the Great Seal of New York and the license number below it "with no other letters or numbers," and that phrase closes the inner circle to an expiration date, a firm name, an address or an "R.A." after the name. The only other text the design carries is the legend itself, "Registered Architect" at the top of the outer band and "State of New York" at the bottom. (8 NYCRR § 69.5)

Not on the original. Education Law § 7307(1) requires working drawings and specifications — prepared by the architect or by a full-time or part-time subordinate employed under the architect's supervision — to be stamped with the seal and "signed on the original with the personal signature of such architect when filed with public officials." The confusion comes from the next clause of the same subdivision, which bars an official charged with enforcing construction laws from accepting or approving plans or specifications that are not stamped with the seal of an architect or professional engineer registered in this state "and bearing the authorized facsimile of the signature" of that architect or engineer. That clause is the test the official applies to the copy in front of him; it does not relieve the original of the personal signature. (NY Education Law § 7307(1))

Only to those whose application came in on or after January 1, 1987. 8 NYCRR § 69.5 opens "For those applicants initially applying for licensure on or after the effective date of this Part (January 1, 1987)," so architects licensed on earlier applications lawfully hold seals of a different design. The engineers' and land surveyors' section uses a different cut-off, July 1, 1984, so the vintage at which a New York seal had to change is not the same across the professions. The alteration-warning paragraph of § 69.5 carries no date limit at all and reaches any plan bearing an architect's seal. (8 NYCRR § 69.5; cf. 8 NYCRR § 68.13)

Some are outside the article entirely. Education Law § 7307(5) provides that article 147 shall not apply to farm buildings, including barns, sheds, poultry houses and other buildings used directly and solely for agricultural purposes; nor to residence buildings of gross area of fifteen hundred square feet or less, not including garages, carports, porches, cellars, or uninhabitable basements or attics; nor to alterations, costing ten thousand dollars or less, to any building or structure within the city of New York and twenty thousand dollars or less, to any building or structure outside the city of New York, which do not involve changes affecting the structural safety or public safety thereof. (NY Education Law § 7307(5))