From concept to handover: the design stages, and why your software should know them
Stages are not bureaucracy — they are how design risk is retired in order. Here is the ladder most projects climb, and what each rung means for drawings, fees and approvals.
Every architecture project climbs the same ladder: an idea becomes a concept, a concept becomes a developed design, a developed design becomes documents a contractor can price and build. The stages exist because design risk has an order — you cannot detail a wall whose position is undecided — and because fees, approvals and liability all attach to stage boundaries.
The reference ladder
The best-known framework is the RIBA Plan of Work, which runs from stage 0 (strategic definition) through 7 (use). Most practices, whatever country they work in, run a local dialect of the same ladder — the names change, the logic does not.
In the United States, the AIA's standard owner–architect agreements describe the same ladder as schematic design, design development and construction documents.
| Phase | What is decided | What the client signs off |
|---|---|---|
| Brief & feasibility | What is being built, roughly how big, roughly what budget | The brief |
| Concept | The design idea — massing, organisation, character | The concept |
| Developed design | The design fixed in its major decisions — dimensions, systems, materials | The scheme |
| Technical design | Everything a contractor needs to price and build | Issue for tender/construction |
| Construction | The design defended and detailed through execution | Progressive approvals |
| Handover | The building complete, defects listed and closed | Practical completion |
Why stages should live in your software, not your folder names
In most practices, stages exist as folder names — `03_DD`, `04_TD` — which means the stage is a filing convention, not a fact the system knows. Nothing stops a stage-2 drawing being transmitted while the stage-1 approval is still pending; nothing tallies which deliverables of the current stage are done; the fee instalment tied to stage completion is tracked in a spreadsheet that does not know what the drawings are doing.
Ofivio AEC makes the stage a live object: in Studio, eleven design stages each own their deliverables and drawing sets by discipline, each with its own revisions and transmittals. When a stage's deliverables are done, that fact is visible — and the fee milestone attached to it is one step from an invoice, in the same system.
See the eleven-stage design spine with real drawings and deliverables in it.
Explore Ofivio AEC →Practice management for architects, built around the stages the work moves through
Design stages, drawing sets with real revision history, transmittals, client approvals, fees and the studio's own books — one system for how a practice is run.
SolutionsDrawing management where a revision has a reason, an author and a paper trail
A drawing register with real revision history, transmittals and issue records — so nobody builds Rev B while Rev D is on site.
IndustriesSoftware for architecture practices, from the first sketch to the final certificate
What a practice runs on: stages, drawings, transmittals, client approvals, fees, staff cost and the studio's own books — in one workspace.
IndustriesSoftware for engineering consultancies, built around revision and issue
Projects, drawing issue, revisions, staff cost and fees for MEP, structural and civil consultancies — the delivery side of engineering, in Ofivio AEC.
Ofivio AEC, explained: one product for architects, engineers and contractors
Ofivio AEC arrives ready for the practice: design stages, drawing sets, revisions and transmittals in Studio, with Manager, HR and Finance beside them. Here is what is inside, what a firm adds, what it costs, and what it does not do.
DrawingsDrawing revision management — version history is not revision control
The most expensive failure in a small practice is a revision that did not reach site. It is almost never anybody's fault, which is exactly why process cannot fix it and a system has to.
DesignGetting client approvals in writing — without making the client do paperwork
"But we agreed to this in the meeting" is the most expensive sentence in architecture. Approvals are the practice's only protection against free redesign — and they have to be effortless for the client, or they won't happen.