Time Frame

Contracts specify what must happen but also when. Architects must coordinate things in time as well as in space, making sure buildings are constructed “as planned” and “on time.”32 Each project is made up of a series of phases. The completion of phases is linked to the payment of fees. Intervals are prescribed in advance, limited by a fee proposal through which costs are fixed. Projects anticipate a series of known future outcomes that are worked toward: the definition of a brief; the development of a design; the detailed development of plans for planning permission and then for tendering; and the construction of the building. The time of the project is linear and sequential: each phase follows the next, one after the other. Keeping things “on time” is an important but difficult accomplishment....