You run every project through the same five architectural design phases, and you need to know where each phase starts and stops before you can track hours or fees against it. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) B101-2017 owner-architect agreement defines them: Schematic Design (SD), Design Development (DD), Construction Documents (CDs), Procurement and the Construction Phase. Procurement means bidding, and the Construction Phase is called construction administration (CA). In the B101 basic services order, you produce the concept and preliminary plans in SD, refine the scheme and its building systems in DD, prepare the drawings and specifications a contractor prices and builds from in CDs, help the owner select that contractor during procurement, and administer the contract through final payment in CA. Pre-design and programming come before those five under a separate scope, and the architectural design process, from first sketch to coordinated model to detail, runs inside these phases.

Design Phases Make a Project Manageable and Client Expectations Predictable

Phases give you a place to track every hour and invoice and record each decision. You carry three to a dozen projects at once, and "the clinic is in DD at 60% of hours" tells you more than any task list, because every project on your desk uses the same five checkpoints and the same fee logic. That's the premise of project management in an A&E firm: compare projects on one scale and find the one that needs attention before the month closes.

Phases also help you set client expectations. Most owners build once. They're spending more than they ever have, and they can't undo a poured foundation. You walk them through five phases with an approval at the end of each one, and that tells them what they'll see and when. They also know what they commit to at each signature. B101 builds that rhythm into the agreement, as the B101 phase approvals show: you request owner approval of the SD documents before DD starts, and again before CDs begin. An owner who approved a floor plan in SD argues less about it in CDs.

The Five Architectural Design Phases Run From Schematic Design to Construction Administration

B101-2017 Article 3 orders the phases as Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Procurement, and Construction Phase. The B101 edition comparison shows that the 2017 edition renamed "Bidding or Negotiation" to "Procurement". Most firms still say bidding and construction administration.

Basic Services include structural engineering plus mechanical and electrical engineering. Anything else is a Supplemental or Additional Service. Programming isn't one of the five:

• Owner's responsibility: The owner furnishes a written program covering objectives, schedule, constraints, space requirements, and relationships, and your first SD task is to review it (owner's written program).
• Architect's programming scope: Programming sits in B101's Supplemental Services table, and you provide it only if that table assigns it to you, for a separate fee.

AIA's own guidance says predesign services can run as supplemental services or under a separate agreement and are "worth a focused conversation and appropriate compensation," per the AIA predesign services article. So the count is five B101 phases plus the pre-design work that precedes them, and your fee proposal should show them that way.

Phase Deliverables, Fees and Durations Compared Side by Side

The fee shares below come from the AIA Best Practices rule of thumb for budgeting the construction phase, which AIA says dates back at least 40 years. The durations come from the same document's modeled schedule for a 5,000-hour project, as the AIA budgeting guidance lays out. Deliverables and participants follow B101-2017 Article 3:

Treat the duration column as one modeled example. Bucknell University's published ranges for capital projects over $1 million run 3–6 months for SD, 5–7 for DD, 4–6 for CDs, 4–6 weeks for bidding, and 3–20 months for CA (Bucknell phase durations), so budget your own phases from past projects of the same type.

Programming Defines the Problem Before Any Design Begins

The Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG) defines programming as "the research and decision-making process that identifies the scope of work to be designed," as the WBDG architectural programming page shows. William Peña, John Focke, and Bill Caudill of Caudill, Rowlett, and Scott (CRS) developed a process for organizing programming efforts in the early 1960s, and the principle hasn't moved: find the problem before you solve it. The output is a program document the decision-makers sign, listing the spaces, their sizes and adjacencies, the constraints from your site analysis, the codes, the budget, and the schedule.

Standard AIA agreements give the owner the program, and you review it. Scope it under B202-2020 when the owner wants you to write it. B202-2020 is the AIA programming scope document, which attaches to an owner-architect agreement and pays you to take an initial program through owner approval to a final program, according to the B202 programming scope. Treat it as one of your architectural services with its own line in the fee. Berkley Design Professional reports in its programming scope creep guidance that a firm revised an owner's program without flagging the work as out of scope, got refused payment, and recovered "about 30 cents on the dollar".

The six-step programming process

The WBDG lays out a six-step sequence, and the steps run in the order a client can answer them, as the WBDG six steps show:

1. Research the project type: Pull space criteria and net-to-gross ratios for the building type, especially if your firm has never done one. Research its cost per square foot too.
2. Establish goals and objectives: Write broad goal statements in six categories: organizational, form and image, function, economic, time, and management. Ask the client:
   • What does the organization need the building to do in five years that it can't do today?
     • What should the building say about you to a visitor?
     • Which activities must sit next to each other, and which must never?
     • What is the real budget, and which number is the ceiling?
     • When must you occupy, and what drives that date?
     • Who decides, and who signs the program?
3. Gather relevant information: Collect users and activities, space criteria, site analysis, and code requirements, in the categories the goals set.
4. Identify strategies: Test centralization, flexibility, flow, phasing, and access against the opportunities and constraints you found.
5. Determine quantitative requirements: Cost and schedule are interdependent with affordable area, and building efficiency equals net assignable square feet divided by gross square feet. A program that wants more net area than the budget buys requires a trade-off in gross area or in the money and time available. Reconcile those requirements here, with your architectural fees priced against the construction budget, before anyone draws.
6. Summarize the program: Write the summary statements and get the decision-makers to sign off on the scope of work as described.

Why keep programming as its own phase

A separate programming phase gets user input on adjacencies and workflow before any drawing is on the table. It starts SD from signed quantities and constraints. It catches changes at the cheapest point, when moving a department costs a conversation rather than re-coordination with every consultant.

Schematic Design Fixes the Concept and First Plans

Sketch before you draft. You test the program against the schedule, the Cost of the Work budget, the site, and the delivery method in SD, then prepare a preliminary design showing the scale and relationship of the components. The SD documents B101 calls for are a site plan where appropriate, preliminary plans, sections, and elevations, plus preliminary selections of major systems and materials. Study models, perspective sketches, and digital representations are optional. A first estimate closes the phase.

Develop alternatives. Two or three massing and plan options, each diagrammed rather than detailed, let the client compare ideas without anyone falling in love with the first one. The point of the phase is a client signature on the basic form and plan before any detailing starts, and the schematic design guide covers how to run the client review that gets you there.

Design Development Refines the Scheme and Its Systems

The client picks one option, and DD develops it. You weigh appearance against durability when selecting materials here. Price also guides your choices, because the outline specifications you produce in this phase identify the major materials and systems and their general quality levels. Your structural engineer joins in earnest with diagrammatic layouts that have to fit the architecture. Mechanical and electrical engineers coordinate their layouts too, and the ceiling cavity is where that argument happens.

A draft project manual travels with the DD set. It holds the outline specifications at minimum. An expanded outline or a full draft of the specifications is better, since the next phase only gets harder without it. You update the cost estimate and advise the owner of any adjustments, then request approval before moving on. The design development guide covers what changes in coordination and budget risk once the scheme is fixed.

Schematic Design, Design Development and Construction Documents Differ by Level of Detail

The three design phases differ in how much is decided, following B101-2017 Article 3. Each phase includes plans and sections, with elevations throughout too:

Construction Documents Produce the Permit Set and the Construction Set

The construction document set serves two readers with different questions. The permit set answers the building department: code compliance, egress, structure, fire protection, accessibility. The issue-for-construction set answers the contractor: dimensions, details, schedules, and specifications the trades build from. Keep them distinct. A plan examiner doesn't need your door hardware schedule and a framer doesn't need your energy compliance forms, so loading everything into both sets slows both reviews and invites conflicting revisions.

New York City's Department of Buildings averaged 25.4 days from filing to approval in FY2026, according to NYC plan review times. Chicago's average permit issuance ran 80–90 days as of fall 2025, per Chicago permit issuance. In cities like these, many firms hire a permit expediter.

Organize the set with the U.S. National CAD Standard (NCS), the computer-aided design (CAD) standard the General Services Administration requires on its own projects, according to the GSA CAD requirements. Version 7, published September 2025, is the current edition. The NCS discipline designators, listed in Version 6 Module 1, are G for general, C for civil, L for landscape, S for structural, A for architectural, F for fire protection, P for plumbing, M for mechanical, E for electrical, and T for telecommunications. Version 7 added Survey/Mapping designators and revised file naming, leaving the sheet-type digits and sequence rules as they were. A hyphen and a sheet-type digit follow the letter, so A-101 is the first architectural floor plan. The construction documents guide covers the full set composition and sheet index.

The NCS sheet-type digit sorts the drawings by what they show. Plans in the 1-series establish the layout. Elevations and sections in the 2- and 3-series carry height, materials, and vertical relationships.

The three types of architectural drawings

You organize the drawings using the NCS sheet-type digit. The site plan locates the building on the parcel and shows setbacks, grades, utilities, and access. Floor plans, the 1-series sheets, show dimensions, room names, and door and window tags, and consultants use that information for coordination. Elevations and sections, the 2- and 3-series sheets, describe height and materials and show the vertical relationships you can't show in a plan.

Bidding Finds the Contractor Who Will Build the Design

The contractor signs with your client. The construction contract runs between owner and contractor under the A201-2017 general conditions, which B101 incorporates, as the A201 general conditions summary explains. Your role under B101 is to help the owner build the bidder list, obtain bids or proposals, confirm responsiveness, determine the successful bid, and award. Keep bidding as its own phase in the fee: a pre-bid walk, three rounds of questions, two addenda, and a bid tabulation the owner wants explained are hours you'd otherwise bill against CDs.

Choose between negotiated proposals and competitive bidding, then plan the invitation list and bid period before comparing the bids. Negotiation suits an owner who already trusts a builder or wants the contractor in the room during CDs. Competitive bidding suits public owners and private owners who want three prices for the same drawings.

Negotiated vs. competitive bids

B101 splits the phase by method. In competitive bidding you help distribute the bidding documents, run the pre-bid conference, answer bidder questions, issue addenda, and conduct the bid opening. In negotiated proposals you help distribute them, organize interviews, and take part in negotiations and a summary report. Substitution review in either track is an Additional Service with the owner's written authorization, a change from the 2007 edition, as the B101 substitution review notes.

How the competitive bid process runs

Build the invitation list from contractors whose comparable work you can walk through, then call the architects who worked with them and ask about requests for information (RFIs), change-order habits, and closeout. Send the full drawing set and project manual to every bidder on the same day. Indiana's state designer manual sets a two-week minimum bid period and expects three to four weeks, per the state bid period guidance.

Read the spread when bids come back. A 2020 study of 210 Ohio Department of Transportation projects found that a low coefficient of variation among bids "shows little disagreement among bidders," and that projects with more dispersed bids saw higher cost changes at completion, as the bid dispersion study reports. Three bids within a few percent suggest the documents read clearly. A lone outlier points to something in the set that can be read two ways, and you'll meet that ambiguity again as an RFI or a change order.

Construction Administration Covers Execution Through Closeout

Construction Phase services start at contract award and end when you issue the final Certificate for Payment. You administer the contract and advise the owner through construction and closeout, from site visits to final inspections and payment. The contractor controls construction methods and safety.

Pre-construction and during-construction tasks

Open with a pre-construction meeting that fixes the schedule, the submittal schedule, the RFI protocol, pay application dates, and who signs what. The phase then settles into a rhythm:

• Progress meetings and site visits: B101 calls for visits "at intervals appropriate to the stage of construction," not exhaustive or continuous inspection. Write a report after every visit and tell the owner about known deviations and observed defects.
• Submittals and shop drawings: You review shop drawings, product data, and samples "only for the limited purpose of checking for conformance with information given and the design concept." Shop drawings aren't Contract Documents, and your approval doesn't relieve the contractor of its errors (submittal review limits).
• Monthly pay applications: The contractor applies on G702 with a G703 schedule of values, and under A201 you certify, certify in part with reasons, or withhold with reasons within seven days of receipt (payment certification timing). If you certify a different amount, initial the change.
• RFIs: You answer in writing within agreed time limits or with reasonable promptness. Neither B101 nor A201 sets a day count, so put one in the contract.
• Change orders: You prepare Change Orders, signed by owner, contractor, and architect, and Construction Change Directives, signed by owner and architect when cost or time is still in dispute. You may also order minor changes that touch neither.

Post-construction and closeout

Substantial Completion is the date the owner can use the work for its intended purpose. After the final walk-through, the contractor prepares the punch list, you verify and amend it, and you issue AIA G704-2017, the Certificate of Substantial Completion, which sets the warranty start date and occupancy terms, according to the certificate of substantial completion. Final payment then waits on the closeout package:

• Project record documents: The contractor's marked-up drawings, delivered to you as a record of the work as constructed.
• Operation and maintenance manuals: Equipment data and procedures the facilities staff will use for the life of the building.
• Warranties and bonds: Collected and forwarded to the owner, with warranty dates tied to the G704.
• Consent of surety and lien waivers: The surety's consent to final payment wherever a bond was required (consent of surety form), plus the releases and waivers of liens A201 requires before final payment (lien waiver requirement), carried on the contractor's affidavit (release of liens affidavit).

A201 gives the owner one year from Substantial Completion to notify the contractor of defective work, and an owner who misses it waives correction and breach-of-warranty claims for that work, as the one-year correction period explains. Put the warranty inspection on the calendar before you leave the site. AIA sets no inspection month, and the University of Arkansas requires the inspection no later than 10 months after occupancy, per its ten-month warranty inspection guidance. Ten months leaves the contractor time to fix what you find before the deadline.

The Architectural Design Process Maps Onto the Phases

The design process is the thinking. The phases are the contract's checkpoints on that thinking. The list below maps each step of the process onto the phase where it happens.

• Programming: You seek the problem.
• SD: You explore sketches and alternatives.
• DD: You converge on the scheme and coordinate it.
• CDs and CA: In CDs, you write specifications; during CA, you review shop drawings to check whether your drawings said what you meant.

Each phase ends with a signature because you reach a decision at each stage that shouldn't be reopened for free. B101 asks you to request owner approval of the SD documents before DD starts, and again before CDs begin. The owner knows what they commit to at each signature.

You use CAD and building information modeling (BIM) inside those steps, with 3D modeling as another tool. B101 lists study models and perspective sketches as optional SD deliverables. You can also provide digital representations, so a massing model is a schematic tool.

The phases overlap substantially in BIM, as Architect Magazine reported in its BIM and design phases coverage of BIM practice. AIA's E203-2013 handles that overlap by requiring the project's BIM protocol to state the level of development of each model element at each milestone, as the model element milestones preview shows. You detail a curtain wall in DD using the model, so you spend those hours in DD even though the fee split stays put. Track hours by phase.

Phase names also vary outside the US, and a British or international consultant on your team will describe the same work in their own framework's stages. The AIA international practice guide warns against assuming Schematic Design or Contract Administration means the same scope abroad, so write the actual scope into the contract rather than relying on a phase name to carry it.

Plan and Track Fees by Phase in Monograph

Your CD phase runs 20% over its hours and you only find out at invoicing because the timesheets sit in one file, the fee proposal in another, and nobody reconciles them until billing. Monograph structures every project by phase, aligned with the Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice, so the five B101 phases and a pre-design line are the project's spine rather than a tag on a task. You set a budget for each phase, assign people to phases with planned hours and billable rates, and your team records time against those phases. You see the burn as your team logs hours.

MoneyGantt™, Monograph's signature view in project planning, puts the Gantt-style phase timeline and the budget-to-cash progression on one screen. A traditional Gantt chart tells you DD is 60% through its weeks. MoneyGantt™ shows alongside it that DD is 80% through its hours and how its budget is tracking toward cash. That's the question you take into a principal meeting, and you get it without building a report. The guide to phase time tracking covers how to keep entries landing on the right phase so the numbers hold.

16,000+ architects and engineers across 2,000+ firms use Monograph to manage their practices. Book a demo to see the five phases and your fee split set up against one of your own projects.

Fee Share by Phase Follows a Predictable Split

Other published U.S. schedules vary from the AIA rule of thumb, which is unusual for its low SD and high DD shares. Two published schedules show the difference, one from AIA's own billing survey and one from Washington State's capital budget instructions. Both put SD at 17–18% and DD at 20%, against the rule of thumb's 10% and 25%.

• Surveyed billings: AIA's Architecture Billings Index (ABI) survey of billings by phase, from July 2010 data, reported 17% SD, 20% DD, 40% CD, 4% bidding, and 19% construction (phase billing survey).
• State allocations: Washington State's capital budget instructions prescribe 18% SD, 20% DD, 31% CD, 2% bidding, 27% construction, and 2% closeout (Washington fee schedule).

Across those schedules CDs take 31–40%, bidding 2–5%, and construction 19–27%, and the 40% CD figure is the one to carry into your construction documents planning. PSMJ Resources warns that many firms budget around 15% for CA when the figure "typically should be closer to 25 or 30 percent", according to its construction administration budgeting post, and CA is where a thin split shows up as unpaid site visits.

Use the split to budget hours. Take a fee of $120,000 and a blended rate of $120 an hour. CD at 40% is $48,000, or 400 hours, which is 67 hours a month over a six-month CD schedule, under half a person. A CD team of two people full time overstaffs the phase nearly five times over, and you can spot that mismatch before invoicing. Run that arithmetic for every phase in your proposal, then write the same phases and percentages into the architectural contract so the schedule, the fee, and the staffing plan all describe one project.

Set Up Your Next Project by Phase in Monograph

Build the next project plan from the five B101 architectural design phases plus a pre-design line, with programming scoped and priced separately when the owner asks you to write it. Assign each phase its fee percentage, convert the percentage to hours at your blended rate, and spread those hours across the phase's calendar so you can see the weekly pace you have to hold. Then log time against those phases from day one. Book a demo to set up that structure in Monograph with one of your current projects and see each phase's burn against its schedule before the next invoice.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between schematic design and design development?

Schematic design decides what the building is, and design development decides what it's made of. SD settles the program fit, massing, plan organization, and site placement, with preliminary plans, sections, elevations, and a first estimate, and it ends with a client signature on the basic form and plan before any detailing starts. DD locks materials, the structural and MEP systems, and quality levels, with typical details, diagrammatic system layouts, and outline specifications. You're in SD, even if you've scheduled the project for DD, when the client is still choosing between two plans.

What deliverables go into a construction document set?

A construction document set holds drawings, specifications, and a project manual, organized so the permit reviewer and the contractor each find what they need. The drawings carry the ten NCS discipline designators and sheet-type digits for plans, elevations, sections, and details, so A-101 is the first architectural floor plan. The specifications set quality levels and performance criteria, and the project manual bundles bidding information and contract conditions. Keep a permit set and an issue-for-construction set, each holding only what its reader needs.

What is the architect's role during construction administration?

You administer the owner-contractor contract and advise the owner. That means site visits at intervals suited to the stage of construction, submittal review for conformance with the design concept, written RFI responses, monthly payment certification within seven days of receipt, change orders and construction change directives, and the inspections for substantial and final completion. Write a report after every visit and tell the owner about known deviations and observed defects. You don't direct means, methods, or safety, and your site visits aren't exhaustive inspections.

How are architect fees split across the phases?

The AIA rule of thumb is 10% schematic design, 25% design development, 40% construction documents, 5% bidding, and 20% construction administration, and other U.S. schedules vary, with CDs at 31–40% and the largest share. Use the split to convert each phase's fee into hours at your blended rate, and give construction administration more than 15% unless you intend to donate site visits.

‍