Phase 1: Pre-Design
Goal: research and determine the owner’s
criteria for the project. Fee Breakdown: 5-10% of total fee
Simply put, this phase is all the stuff that has to be done before starting design. Pre-design can vary greatly depending on the complexity of the project as well as the experience to the owner.
Services during this phase may involve the following:
- Programming – Establishing and documenting design objectives and space requirements
- Budget Analysis – Budgets should have both hard costs and soft cost. Hard costs are construction related cost including materials, labor, and contractor’s overhead and profit. Soft cost are non-construction related costs including designer’s fee and expenses, other consultants fees and expenses, city fees, insurance and other interest.
- Schedule Development – Owner’s schedule, Consultant’s Schedule, Contractor’s schedule, Project complexity and the permit process
- Code Analysis – each city and each region within the city may have different set of rules governing many aspects of the project.
- Space Schematics – Diagrammatic studies of spaces and their relationships
- Existing Facilities Survey – Existing structures need to be assessed before proceeding with any new design or addition.
- Site Analysis and Selection – Analyzing a projects site to determine what makes it valuable, what are its opportunities,
and what about it is negative and needs to be properly dealt with
Aside from our services in the Pre-design phase, most projects
require that the owner hire consultants to prepare the following
two documents:
- Site Survey – Plat of Survey
- Soils Report/Geotechnical Investigation