As the discussion in the previous sections implies, the planning stage usually involves considerable back-and-forth deliberation of several alternatives, as options are modified and refined, in an attempt to find the best solution to the stated programme objectives. Feedback is an important part of this process, as the various parties evaluate the alternatives, suggest changes and reach tentative decisions. Although some of this methodology continues into the design stage, for the most part the basic design decisions have been made and the task is now to refine and amplify the programme in a series of steps that result in documents that will be used for the construction process. The two parts of the design stage are schematic design and design development, after which the contract document (or construction document) development stage results in fully completed documents. The process is a continuum, with some overlaps and considerable similarity among the topics and tasks. We begin by describing schematic design.
