At the start of a building project, the architect is the one who defines the remit of the work which is also know as the architectural programme that is to be followed. It is in this phase of programming where the essential parameters and objectives of the design work are brought forward. For a home project, the programme would contain information like the sorts of facilities that the customer wants in the house, customer’s requirement of room square footage and area, and the numbers of rooms in a house as well as the budget of construction of the building according to the design prepared by the architect.

For a bigger building project such as a college or an institute, a programme would be more complicated. It will be describing the functions of every room and numbers of room types, electrical and mechanical systems applied in the building design, design features of the exterior area such as playing areas and the interior finishes that are needed. For terribly complicated projects, a programme would be divided into smaller programmers for separate buildings with an altogether complete master programming document that joins the individual building programs.

The architect will research and analyze the relevant codes of building and planning that can be applicable to the particular project location. Thorough research of the site where the project is to be executed plays a vital role in the beginning stages of a building design because of the fact that the awareness of the development rules of any specific project location can assist in the identification of parameters for the size and layout of the building to be constructed.