Architectural Reports in Practice: Types, Building, and Purpose

Introduction

Many architects in practice write reports. Most of these reports deal with design work, site supervision or construction. So, some architects are surprised to learn that a report about a pay rise also exists. Here is how it often works. An employee asks to meet the HR manager. They sit down together, and the employee explains how he has helped the firm perform better and grow. He then asks for a raise. He backs up his case in an email or in person, and large firms often ask for a formal email. The HR manager then meets the employee’s direct manager to discuss the request and hear the manager’s view. Finally, the HR manager receives a final report from the direct manager to proceed to the firm’s decision maker, who reviews it and decides.

Architects are known for their drawings. Yet much of their professional work is written down in reports. A feasibility study helps a client decide whether to buy a site. A site report records what went wrong on a Tuesday afternoon in March. A monthly financial report tells the directors whether the practice is making money. Complaints register shows whether clients are happy. Without these documents, an office would struggle to prove what it did, why it did it and what it cost.

At university, students learn to design, and they learn to write academic reports. These differ a lot from the reports used in practice. Students rarely learn how a firm tracks its fees, reviews its staff or handles an unhappy client. Many graduates meet these reports for the first time on the job, and every office seems to do them a little differently.

This article sets out the main kinds of report used in architectural practice. It separates reports about projects from reports about the practice itself. When new graduates first face report writing, many lean on guidance from the RIBA, the AIA and other professional bodies in their country. The article then looks closely at four internal areas that are often poorly documented: performance reports, human resources reports, complaints reports and consultant reports. Finally, it asks what real practices make public and what they keep to themselves.

The picture here comes from published guidance, industry surveys, regulator documents and a few statements by practices. It reflects what can be found in public, which is only part of the story. In practice, architects often find it hard to track down real reports from firms.

Two families of report

It helps to sort architectural reports into two families.

The first family is project reports. These deal with one building or one commission. They are written for clients, contractors, authorities and the design team. Their job is to explain a design, record a decision, show progress or prove compliance.

The second family is practice reports. These deal with the business of running an architectural office. They are written for directors, partners and managers. Their job is to show whether the practice is healthy, whether its people are well used and rewarded, and whether its risks are under control.

The two families connect. A project report that shows a fee overrun feeds directly into a practice report on profitability. A complaint raised on one job may lead to a change in how the whole office works. A good reporting system makes these links easy to see.

Report map Table 1 . The last column shows whether a real example can be found in public.

Project reports

Design reports

A design report explains what the design is and why it looks the way it does. It usually appears at the end of a stage, such as concept design or developed design. It sets out the project brief, the site, the constraints, the options considered and the option chosen. It often includes plans, sketches and short notes on structure, services, materials and cost.

The main purpose is agreement. The client reads the report, asks questions and approves the direction. That approval then becomes the starting point for the next stage. A weak design report leaves room for later argument about what was agreed. A strong one makes the reasoning clear and gives the client a fair chance to change course before the cost of change rises.

The clearest public form of a design report is the design and access statement. Councils hold them on their planning registers, and some developers post them on project websites. One example is the Design and Access Statement for Thrive Park (2025). For a rarer look at full stage reports, a study of the Kew Herbarium and Library Extension describes a 58-page Stage A/B report and a 97-page Stage C report, and reproduces selected pages (Ewenstein and Whyte, 2009). The length makes sense. The first concentrated on goals, requirements, analysis, options and strategies, and the second on architectural, structural, environmental and landscape proposals. A long report can earn its length when it carries decisions.

Feasibility and options reports

Feasibility reports come first, often before an architect is fully appointed. They test whether a project can work. They look at the site, planning policy, access, services, risks, area targets and rough cost. Options reports compare different ways of doing the job. A typical comparison looks at massing, floor area, cost and program.

These reports carry real weight. A client may decide to buy land, borrow money or abandon a scheme based on them. They deserve care, and they should state their assumptions plainly. A feasibility report that hides a doubtful assumption can do harm months later.

Real feasibility reports are easy to find because councils publish them with committee papers. Winchester City Council published a six-week study by Roberts Limbrick on a leisure center, with the brief, five site options, procurement, phasing, cost and program. Poynton Bradbury Architects’ report for Lostwithiel Town Council shows the same arc at small scale, for heritage buildings, with named grant funders. A US example is the Ashland City Hall replacement study by ORW Architecture, which tests seven options. Professional guidance adds one habit worth copying: list the assumptions in the report, so readers can tell what is certain from what is assumed (Chappell, 2019).

Progress reports

Progress reports keep the client informed. They usually cover where the project stands against the program, what decisions are needed, what risks have appeared, what has changed in the scope and how the fee is being used. Many practices send them monthly.

Professional contracts rarely give the progress report a fixed name. It is usually implied in the duty to keep the client informed. That is why its form varies so much. Some practices send a single page. Others send a long document with a risk register and a decision log. Either can work, as long as the client knows where things stand and what is needed from them.

The legal footing is firmer than the word implied suggests. Writers on construction law describe keeping the client informed and protected from foreseeable risks as a key duty of the architect or contract administrator, supported by case law (Finnie, Ameer Ali and Park, 2019).

Site and inspection reports

During construction, architects visit the site and record what they see. A site report notes the state of the work, any defects, differences from the drawings, weather delays and instructions given. It also records who attended and what was agreed.

These reports matter most when something goes wrong. If a dispute arises over a defect or a delay, the site reports may be the best record of who knew what and when. In the United States, the construction administration phase of the standard architect agreements covers site visits and reporting, and a standard field report form is available. In other European countries, the contract administrator’s duties under common building contracts include inspection and certification. Practices record this work in different ways, but the aim is the same: a clear, dated and fair account.

What an architect’s field report looks like

Real examples are rare, but one is public. GMC, an architecture and engineering firm in the south-eastern United States, issued numbered field reports on the Graniteville Elementary additions and renovations in South Carolina. Report 6, dated 15 May 2019, runs to two pages: page one has general observations and numbered action items, and page two has numbered photographs with captions. The report is open to read. Its items include weather-barrier imperfections, a seismic-joint condition, window sealant clearance, fire-alarm conduit and door details.

A useful field report carries a project and report number, the date and conditions, who was present, general progress, numbered action items with an owner and a status, and photographs tied to the item numbers. The GMC report shows several of these. The AIA and NCARB guidance for emerging professionals says each report should be dated, numbered in sequence, tied to project areas and supported by photographs where appropriate (Emerging Professional’s Companion, Construction Phase).

The standard form behind many US field reports is AIA Document G711, Architect’s Field Report, which records observations, deviations from the contract documents and schedule, and required actions (AIA’s FAQs). It is a paid form, so link to it rather than copy it. New York City’s Department of Design and Construction publishes a free template based on G711.

How deep a site visit goes depends on the work, how important it is and how far the architect trusts the contractor. That is one reason site reports differ so much from job to job. It is also why the record matters. Research on construction disputes finds that records made at the time are almost always the best evidence before a tribunal (Walsh and Zehner, 2019), and that the party with the most comprehensive and detailed records has the advantage (Tiew, Hashim and Zolkafli, 2022). An archival study adds that keeping all architectural records is the safest course until the risk of litigation has passed (Nowacki, 1996). A site report written on the day is the kind of record they mean.

Technical and compliance reports

Some reports prove that a design meets a rule. These include building regulations statements, fire strategies, accessibility statements, sustainability and energy reports, and planning statements. Some are written by the architect. Others come from specialist consultants and are coordinated by the architect.

These reports are often read by third parties, such as building control officers or planning officers. For that reason, they need to be accurate and easy to check. A compliance report that is vague or inconsistent with the drawings invites delay.

These reports are also the easiest to read in full. In many western country’s councils, a design and access statement, planning statement, heritage statement, fire strategy, energy statement and sustainability statement are lodged on the local planning authority’s public register against the application reference number. Search the council’s planning site by reference and open the documents tab. Building control submissions sit with the local authority or the approved inspector and are not always public.

What the professional bodies say

As mentioned earlier, architects often try to find these report types in the language of their professional bodies. The answer is partly yes, but not in the way people expect.

Professional bodies rarely define “report types” as a formal category. Instead, they define stages, services and deliverables. Reports sit inside those. A body may describe what must be produced at a given stage, or what an architect must do during construction, without ever calling the result a “report” in a standard way.

Some of this guidance is published openly. Many bodies issue standard owner-architect agreements that set out the phases of service and describe what the architect does in each one. The construction phase, for example, usually includes site visits and reports back to the owner. Progress reporting tends to fall under the general duty to keep the client informed, rather than being listed as a separate report.

Practice-level reports are different. They rarely appear in stage frameworks. Instead, they show up in practice management guidance, benchmarking surveys and accreditation schemes. A typical accreditation scheme sets criteria that a practice must meet, such as an employment policy, an equality, diversity and inclusion policy, adequate insurance, a complaints procedure and a regular return to an industry benchmarking survey. A practice that joins such a scheme must keep records to support those criteria, even though the scheme does not prescribe a fixed report format.

The lesson is simple. If a practice wants to know which reports it should produce, the stage frameworks answer only part of the question. The rest comes from contracts, codes of conduct, insurance requirements and good management.

Architectural practice systems around the world

Many articles on this subject name only one or two well-known bodies, usually from English-speaking countries. Other countries have their own systems. Some are more formal about deliverables.

Germany. The fee rule for architects and engineers is called the HOAI. It splits services into nine phases. Because each phase sits inside a fee rule, its expected output is set out in some detail. The Federal Chamber of German Architects (Bundesarchitektenkammer) is the main professional body.

France. Public projects follow set mission stages under the law on public project management. Common stage names include the sketch, the preliminary design, the detailed design and the project stage. The National Council of the Order of Architects (Conseil national de l’Ordre des architectes) oversees the profession.

Switzerland. The Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA) publishes SIA 102. It defines phases and services for architects, and Swiss practices use it widely.

The Netherlands. The Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA) publishes standard conditions of appointment, known as the DNR. These set out the architect’s duties. Many commissions use them.

Ireland. The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) issues its own forms of appointment and contract documents.

Canada. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) publishes the Canadian Handbook of Practice. Provincial bodies add their own material. The Ontario Association of Architects, for example, publishes standard contracts for architects and for the consultants they hire.

Australia and New Zealand. The Australian Institute of Architects and the New Zealand Institute of Architects publish practice notes and standard conditions. Watch the initials. The Australian body shares its short form with a large institute overseas, so check which one a source means.

At European level. The Architects’ Council of Europe does not set stages or deliverables. It deals with qualifications and practice across member states.

The point for report writers is simple. Stage names, fee rules and duties differ from place to place. A report format that fits one country may need changes in another. The main ideas, though, are shared. Every system expects a design to be explained, progress to be reported, construction to be checked and compliance to be shown.

Practice reports: running the business

The second family of report supports the running of the practice. The most common types are listed here.

• Financial reports. These cover fee income against forecast, billing and work in progress, money owed by clients, cash flow, and profit and loss.
• Project financial reports. These compare fee budget with actual cost for each project and stage. They show the rate at which the fee is being used and flag overruns and extra services.
• Resource and utilisation reports. These show how staff time is spent, how much is chargeable and what capacity is available.
• Timesheet reports. These record time against projects and stages. They feed both billing and profitability analysis.
• Business development reports. These track the pipeline of leads and bids, the win rate and the fee proposals issued.
• Quality management reports. These cover audits, non-conformances and lessons learned, often linked to quality standards.
• Risk and insurance reports. These cover professional indemnity insurance, claims and potential claims, and project risk registers.
• Health and safety reports. These cover legal duties, incidents and office reviews.
• Human resources reports. These cover staffing, evaluation, pay and promotion. They are discussed below.
• Sustainability and environmental reports. These cover office carbon and, increasingly, embodied carbon in projects.
• Closeout reports. These review a finished project: final account, profitability and, sometimes, how the building performs in use.
• Board or directors’ reports. These pull the main points together for partners or directors, usually monthly or quarterly.

Not every practice needs every report. A small office may combine several into one page. A large one may produce each as a separate document with its own owner. What matters is that someone is responsible for each report, that it is produced on a regular schedule and that someone acts on what it shows.

Closeout reports in more detail

The closeout report is the one most often promised and least often written. The AIA’s position Its standard owner-architect agreement, B101, treats post-occupancy evaluation as a service outside basic services, agreed and paid for separately, and its Framework for Design Excellence urges architects to assess completed buildings and record lessons learned. Practice follows the same pattern: a 2015 survey of 29 US and Canadian firms found that most of those evaluating did so on fewer than 5 per cent of their projects (Hiromoto, 2015), and the UK’s 2020 AJ100 survey found that only 4 per cent of the largest practices always evaluate.

Performance reports

“Performance report” is a broad term. It can mean the performance of the practice, of a project or of a person.

Practice performance

The practice-level performance report is built around a handful of ratios. Understanding them is the key to reading any benchmarking survey.

• Utilisation (sometimes called the direct ratio) is the share of staff time that is charged to projects. A high figure means more time earns fees. A very high figure may also mean no time is left for training, marketing or management.
• Net revenue per employee divides income, after the cost of consultants and other pass-through items, by the number of staff. It is a quick measure of productivity.
• Realisation compares what was billed with what the time was worth at standard rates. A figure near full means the practice is being paid for the work done.
• The labour multiplier compares fee income with direct labour cost. It shows how much the practice earns for each unit of salary spent on project work.
• Overhead rate shows how heavy the cost of running the office is compared with direct labour.
• Profit as a share of net fees is the final test.
• Backlog shows how many months of work are already secured.

Several organisations publish benchmarks for these measures. Surveys of United States firms have put average profit at around 13 per cent of net billings, with net billings per employee in the region of 143,000 dollars. Software providers publish reports covering a dozen or more indicators, drawn from the data of thousands of firms. One accounting firm’s study of architecture practices tracks the same measures over five years. Across that period its figures show utilisation by labour cost holding at about 62 per cent, and profit staying between roughly 14 and 16 per cent of net fee income.

These figures are useful, but they need care. Surveys define measures differently. Some calculate profit after paying the owners a market salary. Others do not.

Project performance

Project performance reports look at one job. They compare program with progress, fee budget with cost, and quality issues with targets. Some practices add client satisfaction. The report is most useful when it is short and honest. It should show early warnings, not hide them.

Staff performance

Staff performance reports include appraisals, objectives and professional development records. They overlap with human resources work and are covered in the next section.

Human resources reports

Human resources reports are among the least visible in architecture. They deal with sensitive information, so few are published. Even so, the ideas behind them can be described. Five areas stand out.

Staffing needs

A staffing needs report answers a simple question: do we have the right number of people with the right skills? The usual method is a resource forecast. It adds up the hours that current and expected projects will need. It then compares that with the hours the team can supply. The gap shows where there will be a shortage or spare capacity.

When the forecast shows a shortage, the practice may argue for a new hire. That argument is often written as a short business case. It describes the work that needs doing, the skills required and the likely cost of the role, including the salary range and other employment costs. It also says how the cost will be recovered through fees. A good business case stops hiring from becoming a reaction to stress. It ties each new post to expected work.

Staff evaluation

Staff evaluation reports record how well a person is doing against agreed expectations. They work best when the practice has defined its job levels. Each level has a description of what is expected, and each review measures a person against it.

Some professional bodies offer help. The Design Institute of Australia, for example, publishes a practice note with staff classifications, a review process and forms for self-review at each level. It is written for interior design, but the structure suits architecture well. An evaluation report might include a self-assessment, a manager’s assessment, a comparison with the level description, agreed objectives for the next year and a development plan.

The weakness of many reviews is that the process is one-way. If the manager alone sets the agenda, the person’s goals are lost. If the person alone sets it, the practice’s needs are lost. A good process asks both sides to prepare and to compare notes.

Salary and increments

Salary reports look at what people are paid and how pay should change. They draw on two kinds of evidence. The first is the market. Industry compensation surveys give pay levels by job title, firm size and city. A recent United States survey covered several hundred firms and more than thirteen thousand employees. It found that pay growth had slowed over two years, that unlicensed graduates had seen some of the strongest growth, and that benefits had drifted down as a share of total pay.

The second kind of evidence is internal. It compares each person’s pay with colleagues in similar roles and with the practice’s own pay bands. A sound salary report shows the current salary, the proposed change, the reason and the cost. It also checks that the pattern across the practice is fair.

Position upgrades and promotion

Promotion reports make the case for moving someone to a higher level. The case should rest on the level descriptions: what the person now does, what the next level requires and what evidence shows the person is ready.

Some triggers are common in architecture. Gaining a license or registration is the clearest. In the United States, a survey of small firms found that nearly two thirds offered a pay rise when an unlicensed employee became licensed. Other triggers include taking charge of a project, leading a team or winning new work.

Some writers suggest that a practice should offer two routes upward: one for technical or professional growth and one for leadership. This lets a talented designer progress without having to manage people.

Complaints reports

No practice wants complaints. All practices get them. The question is how they are recorded and used.

The duty to have a procedure

Many regulators and professional bodies require architects to have a written complaints procedure. The rule is common across the Western world, though it does not look the same everywhere.

In Ireland the code of conduct for registered architects says architects are expected to have a written procedure for the prompt and courteous handling of complaints.

In the Australian state of Victoria, the code of professional conduct says architects must have a written procedure for prompt, professional and courteous handling of complaints. The Victorian regulator adds that the procedure should appear in the client agreement. It should also tell clients how to complain to the regulator if the practice cannot settle the matter. Other Australian states, such as New South Wales and South Australia, set similar rules through their own boards.

The United States works in a different way. The main professional body does not require each member to keep a written complaints procedure. Instead, it runs a central process. A client or any aggrieved person can file a complaint against a member with the body’s national ethics council. Separate from that, a licensed architect answers to the state licensing board. Those boards follow conduct rules modelled on a national template. So, the duty in the United States sits with central bodies, not with a procedure that each practice must keep.

The Victorian guidance is helpful on one further point. The procedure need not be long. It may follow the Australian and New Zealand standard for complaint management, but it does not have to. A simple procedure can work if it explains how to raise a complaint, who will deal with it, how long each step will take and what happens if the client remains unhappy.

What a complaints report contains

The working document is the complaints register. A good register records the date, who complained, what the complaint concerns, which project it relates to, what was done, what the outcome was and when the matter was closed.

The periodic report to the directors is a summary of the register. It shows how many complaints arrived, what they were about, how fast they were resolved and what lessons were learned. Trends matter more than single cases. If three complaints in a year concern late drawing, the problem is probably in the system and not in one person.

What regulators publish

Regulators publish statistics and process guides. The registration boards in New Zealand and in Ontario, Canada, for example, describe how complaints about architects are received and handled. These documents describe the regulator’s side of the process. They are not the same as a firm’s own register, which is private.

Consultant and sub-consultant reports

Architects rarely work alone. They lead teams that include structural engineers, services engineers, cost consultants, landscape designers and specialists. Reports about these consultants help the architect manage risk.

The main types

• Appointment tracking records each consultant’s scope, fee, insurance and any warranties.
• Progress and fee reports compare work done with fee drawn and note variations and missing information.
• Coordination reports record design team issues, clashes and who is responsible for each design element.
• Performance appraisals record quality, timeliness and responsiveness. They help when choosing consultants for future work.
• Issue and deliverable logs record what has been received and what is still outstanding.

Examples from public bodies

The best public examples of consultant evaluation come from clients, not architects. Public owners often require a formal assessment of the consultants they hire. Alberta Infrastructure in Canada uses a consultant performance evaluation form. It records the contract award and final amount, key dates, and scores for quality of deliverables, quality of design and safety, and management. The Canadian federal procurement department uses a consultant performance evaluation review form with interim and final versions and a points scale. In the United States, state transport agencies and public universities use similar forms and processes.

These forms look at the consultant from the owner’s side. An architect who manages sub-consultants can adapt them. The categories translate well: quality of work, adherence to the program, communication, cost control and cooperation with the design team.

The contract side

Good reporting starts with a good contract. In Ontario, the architects’ association publishes a standard form of subcontract between a licensed architect and a sub-consultant, with a guide to using it. It sits alongside the association’s main client contracts. A clear sub-consultant agreement defines what each party must deliver, which makes later reporting much easier.

What practice shows

A search for real examples produces a clear pattern. Some types of documents are easy to find. Others are almost impossible.

The pattern follows the article’s two families. Project reports are public far more often than practice reports, because planning applications and public clients put them on the record. The table below lists real examples that can be opened.

Real examples you can open Table 2 . Each is labelled by type, so a form is not mistaken for a practice report.

Some documents are easy to find. Industry benchmarking surveys, standard contracts, and regulator guidance on complaints procedures all circulate widely, and practices occasionally release public statements such as gender pay gap reports. A few architectural documents also surface through official channels, for instance feasibility reports in council committee papers or design and access statements on planning registers.

Other documents are much harder to find. Internal records such as a practice’s recruitment business case, a salary review for named staff, or a firm’s complaints register rarely reach the public. An architect’s own site or progress report is almost as scarce: only one real example turned up, alongside the usual forms and templates.

This gap has a practical meaning. A practice that wants these reports usually has to build them itself. It can borrow structure from public sources, such as job-level frameworks, benchmark measures, and the complaints procedure outlined by regulators, then adapt them to its own size, culture, and legal setting.

Building a reporting system

A practice that wants better reporting does not need to start with a long list. A few simple principles help.

Start with purpose. Each report should answer a question that someone needs answered. If nobody can say what decision the report supports, it may not be needed.

Give each report an owner. Someone should be responsible for producing it, checking it and presenting it. Reports without owner’s drift.

Set a rhythm. Some reports suit a monthly cycle, such as financial and resource reports. Others suit a yearly cycle, such as salary and promotion reviews. Complaints should be reviewed at least quarterly.

Use one source of data. Timesheets are the foundation of many practice reports. If staff record time carefully, utilisation, project cost and billing can all come from the same data. If they do not, every report becomes a debate about whose numbers are right.

Keep it short. A one-page report that is read is better than a twenty-page report that is not. Where detail is needed, put it in an appendix.

Use templates. A standard layout makes reports easier to write and to compare over time. Templates also help new staff learn what is expected.

Protect sensitive information. Human resources and complaints reports should be shared only with those who need them. The practice should decide who sees what.

Review the system itself. Once a year, the directors should ask which reports were useful, which were ignored and which are missing.

Finally, reports are the written memory of an architectural practice. Project reports explain designs, show progress, record what happens on site and prove compliance. Practice reports show whether the business is sound, whether its people are well used and fairly treated, whether complaints are handled well and whether consultants deliver.

Professional bodies shape these reports, but mostly through stages, services, codes and accreditation criteria, not through lists of report types. The western bodies such as the AIA are important, but they are not the whole picture. Other countries have their own frameworks, and some define deliverables more formally.

The four areas examined in detail here, performance, human resources, complaints and consultants, show the same pattern. The ideas are well understood, and benchmarks, templates and guidance exist. Real internal examples are hard to find because they are private. Practices that want them must usually build their own, drawing on shared measures and public guidance.

The practical message is encouraging. A modest set of well-owned, well-timed, well-kept reports is enough to improve decisions, protect the practice and support its people. The work lies not in producing more paper, but in choosing carefully what to record and acting on what the records show.

Further reading & references

Performance and benchmarking

• American Institute of Architects. AIA Firm Survey Report 2024: Key Findings (infographic). aia.org.
• Withum. A/E Benchmarking Survey. withum.com.
• BQE Software. Architecture Benchmarking Reports, 2025 and 2026. bqe.com.
• PKF O’Connor Davies. Architectural Study, October 2025. pkfod.com.
• Monograph. 2025 Salary and Business Benchmarks for Architects and Engineers. monograph.com.
• Deltek. Global A&E industry benchmarks and KPI tracking. deltek.com.
• PSMJ. Financial Performance Benchmark Survey Report 2026. go.psmj.com.

Human resources

• American Institute of Architects. Compensation & Benefits Report 2025 (press release, 30 September 2025). aia.org.
• Building Design + Construction. Architects’ pay gained modestly in past two years, 1 October 2025. bdcnetwork.com.
• American Institute of Architects. Three major takeaways from the Small Firm Compensation Report, 2023. aia.org.
• Design Institute of Australia. Practice Note PN 031: Staff Review and Review Forms. design.org.au.
• Architecture Careers and Parlour resources on competency maps and career planning. aca.org.au; parlour.org.au.
• Stride Treglown. Gender Pay Gap 2025. stridetreglown.com.
• Designing Buildings. Resource forecasting for architects. designingbuildings.co.uk.
• Entre Architect. A guide to successful recruitment at an architecture firm, Part Two (2016). entrearchitect.com.
• Scott Brownrigg. Practice Role Model profile. architecture.com.

Complaints

• Architects Registration Board of Victoria. Guide to the Victorian Architects Code of Professional Conduct, Clause 16: Provide a complaint handling process. arbv.vic.gov.au.
• Architects Registration Board of Victoria. Practice video: Navigating conflict with clients. arbv.vic.gov.au.
• NSW Architects Registration Board. Complaints policy, August 2024. architects.nsw.gov.au.
• Ontario Association of Architects. Complaints Committee Process Infosheet; Act enforcement and complaints overview. oaa.on.ca.
• New Zealand Registered Architects Board. Annual reports 2020 to 2024. nzrab.nz.
• Architects Registration Board (UK). Dealing with complaints, supporting guidance (consultation draft); Standard 10 guidance. arb.org.uk.
• Standards Australia and Standards New Zealand. AS/NZS 10002:2022, Guidelines for complaint management in organizations.

Consultants

• Alberta Infrastructure. Consultant Performance Evaluation form. alberta.ca.
• Public Services and Procurement Canada. Consultant Performance Evaluation Review Form (CPERF). canadabuys.canada.ca.
• Florida Department of Transportation. Consultant Evaluation guidelines. fdot.gov.
• Ontario Association of Architects. OAA 900-2021 Guide to the Standard Form of Subcontract Between Licensed Member and Subconsultant, version 1.1, January 2025. oaa.on.ca.

Real examples and added sources (November 2026)

• Roberts Limbrick. Outline Facility Brief and Site Options Appraisal, Winchester Leisure Centre, 2014. https://www.winchester.gov.uk/assets/attach/13623/Outline-Facility-Brief-and-Site-Options-Appraisal-1-.pdf
• GMC. Architect Field Report 6, Graniteville Elementary additions and renovations, 2019. https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/4726/district/4316411/GVES_Report__6__05_15_19_.pdf
• AIA Contract Documents. G711-2018, Architect’s Field Report. https://aiacontracts.com/contract-documents/6128711-architects-field-report
• City of New York, Department of Design and Construction. Architect’s Field Report template, 2025. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/ddc/downloads/contracts/DDC%20Field%20Report%20Template_2025.docx
• AIA and NCARB. Emerging Professional’s Companion, Construction Phase: Observation. https://content.aia.org/sites/default/files/2017-03/EPC_Construction_Phase_3C.pdf
• Ewenstein, B. and Whyte, J. (2009). Knowledge practices in design: the role of visual representations as epistemic objects. DOI 10.1177/0170840608083014
• Chappell, D. (2019). Feasibility studies, in Professional Practice for Architects. DOI 10.1002/9781119540106.ch40
• Finnie, Ameer Ali and Park (2019). Management, Procurement and Law. DOI 10.1680/jmapl.18.00044
• Walsh and Zehner (2019). Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction. DOI 10.1061/LA.1943-4170.0000312
• Tiew, Hashim and Zolkafli (2022). Journal of Construction Business and Management 5(2). DOI 10.15641/jcbm.5.2.1253
• Nowacki (1996). American Archivist 59(2). DOI 10.17723/aarc.59.2.c8q468063x266j1v
• Bordass and Leaman (2005). Building Research & Information. DOI 10.1080/09613210500162016
• Hay, Samuel, Watson and Bradbury (2017). Building Research & Information. DOI 10.1080/09613218.2017.1314692
• AIA. Design for Discovery, Framework for Design Excellence. https://www.aia.org/showcases/6082671-design-for-discovery
• Hiromoto, J. (2015). Post Occupancy Evaluation Survey Report, Architect & Design Sustainable Design Leaders. https://www.buildinggreen.com/sites/default/files/Hiromoto_POE_report_-_optimized.pdf