RIBA Plan of Work 2020: What Actually Happens at Each Stage
Author: David Campbell BA BArch MA PgDIP RIBA
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Every architectural project, whatever its scale or sector, moves through the same eight stages. Most clients have heard the phrase RIBA Plan of Work without ever seeing what it actually asks of a project, or why it matters to the building they end up with.
Stage 0 and Stage 1: deciding what to build, then briefing it properly
Most clients arrive at Stage 0 assuming the answer is obvious: build an extension, convert a basement, refurbish a floor, reposition a hotel. The RIBA Plan of Work asks a more useful question first.
Stage 0, Strategic Definition, is not a design stage at all. It exists to test whether construction is genuinely the right answer to the client's requirements, weighing the options, project risks, and a rough order of cost before serious money is committed. For a listed building or a site in a conservation area, this is also where historic status, sensitivity and conservation-related risks are first identified, well before a design line is drawn [1]. It should also be the point a client returns to at the end of a building's life, when refurbishment, repurposing or redevelopment come back onto the table [1].
Stage 1, Preparation and Briefing, is where those requirements are pinned to an actual site. This is the stage that separates projects which run smoothly from those that stall in Stage 2: it establishes the Project Brief, the budget, the sustainability outcomes the client wants the building to achieve, and, through feasibility studies, whether the client's ambitions can physically fit on the site at all [1]. A rushed brief here is the single most common cause of abortive design work later. We treat Stage 1 as a design discipline in its own right, not paperwork ahead of the design.
Stage 2: Concept Design, where the architecture actually happens
Stage 2 is where the Architectural Concept is set: the spatial idea, the massing, the relationship between the building and its context. The RIBA guidance is explicit that this stage is about rules of thumb rather than resolved detail, and that pushing for too much certainty too early risks abortive work if the concept itself is not yet settled [1]. Regular design reviews test the concept against the brief and against input from structural and services engineers, while an early cost plan checks that the emerging design still fits the budget. It is also, for London projects, the point at which pre-application planning advice is usually sought, including on conservation area and listed building matters, before further design time is committed [1].
Stage 3: Spatial Coordination, the stage that saves a project
Stage 3 is widely misunderstood as more design work. It is not. Its purpose is to test and validate the concept already agreed at Stage 2, coordinating architecture with structural and services engineering so nothing collides once construction information is produced at Stage 4 [1]. This is the stage where a planning application is typically submitted, once the design is coordinated enough that only minor iterations should be needed after consent [1]. Skipping the rigour of this stage is the single biggest cause of late, expensive design changes once a contractor is on site.
Stage 4: Technical Design, protecting the concept through construction detail
Stage 4 produces every piece of information needed to manufacture and construct the building, including final specifications and the Building Regulations application [1]. It is technical in nature, but it is not neutral. Every junction detail is either a faithful translation of the Stage 2 concept or a slow erosion of it. Keeping design intent and technical resolution in the same hands through Stage 4 is what prevents that drift.
One framework, different weight by typology
The eight stages stay constant, but where the real risk sits shifts by sector. On a residential refurbishment in a conservation area, the weight falls on Stage 0 and Stage 1, where planning history and heritage sensitivity need to be understood before a brief is even fixed. On a hospitality project, Stage 2 tends to carry the most risk, because the concept has to resolve guest experience, back-of-house operation and commercial viability simultaneously. On a commercial fit-out or repositioning, Stage 3 and Stage 4 often decide the outcome, since services coordination and technical resolution against an operating tenant's programme leave little room for error. For a cultural building, Stage 1 briefing typically needs to hold the most competing voices, funders, trustees, and the public, before design can properly begin.
Stage 5: Manufacturing and Construction, where the drawings become a building
Stage 5 is the stage clients recognise: scaffolding, deliveries, a site changing week by week. Its formal outcome is manufacturing, construction and commissioning completed, ending with a Practical Completion certificate [1]. Behind that simple description sits a critical question the RIBA guidance flags directly: who is responsible for inspecting construction quality, responding to site queries, and compiling the defects list before completion is certified [1]. Stages 4 and 5 will often overlap in practice, depending on the procurement route chosen at the outset, another decision with design consequences that traces back to Stage 1 [1].
That question of responsibility matters more than most clients realise when appointing a contractor directly and treating the architect's role as finished at planning permission. Without continuous inspection against the approved design and specification, a contractor's reasonable-seeming site substitutions accumulate, and what gets built quietly diverges from what was designed and priced. Contract administration through Stage 5, under a JCT or equivalent building contract, is what keeps a building honest to its drawings.
Stage 6 and Stage 7: the stages clients forget
Stage 6, Handover, is frequently rushed. The RIBA's own guidance flags this as a common failure: contractors focus on finishing the physical building and certifying Practical Completion, at the expense of the handover activities that let a client actually use the building well from day one, from a proper Building Manual to snagging through a defects list [1]. A beautifully designed kitchen or a carefully specified guest suite is only as good as the handover that explains how its systems actually work, and a light-touch review of how the building is performing shortly after occupation is what catches problems while they are still cheap to fix [1].
Stage 7, Use, covers the entire life of the building afterwards, and it is arguably the most consequential stage for anyone planning their next project. It is also, structurally, where the RIBA Plan of Work becomes circular rather than linear: when a building reaches the end of its useful life in its current form, the client is, in effect, back at Stage 0, weighing refurbishment, repurposing or redevelopment against starting again elsewhere [1]. The feedback from how a building actually performs in use, gathered properly rather than anecdotally, is what makes the brief for the next project sharper than the last.
Why this matters beyond the fee structure
Architects' fees are commonly quoted against these stages, but the Plan of Work is not primarily a billing mechanism. It exists because outcomes compound: a poor brief at Stage 1 produces a compromised concept at Stage 2, an uncoordinated design at Stage 3 creates chaos at Stage 4, and poor information at Stage 4 generates the site queries that erode a build's quality and budget at Stage 5 [1]. RIBA continues to develop the framework beyond the core 2020 document, publishing topic-specific overlays, including guidance for Passivhaus delivery and for modern methods of construction, that layer onto the same eight stages [2].
It is also worth noting who is actually in the room at each point. Stage 0 and Stage 1 involve only the client team, sometimes supported by a RIBA Client Adviser; the design team is not appointed to make design decisions until the brief exists [1]. From Stage 2 onwards, the design team leads, with the construction team joining depending on the procurement route, and by Stage 5 the balance has flipped entirely to the contractor [1]. Knowing who is meant to hold the pen at each stage is often what prevents scope and responsibility disputes later.
At Vision + Design, our director-led structure means the same senior architect who shapes the concept at Stage 2 is still in the room resolving technical design at Stage 4 and inspecting quality on site at Stage 5. Across residential, hospitality, commercial and cultural projects, that continuity, not the framework itself, is what keeps a finished building faithful to the idea the client first approved.
Considering a project and want to understand where you are, or should be, in the process? Contact Vision + Design for a clear, stage-by-stage view of what your project needs next.
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1. RIBA, "RIBA Plan of Work 2020 Overview" — https://www.riba.org/media/syneeeto/2020ribaplanofworkoverviewpdf.pdf
2. RIBA, "RIBA Plan of Work" (resource page, overlays) — https://www.riba.org/work/insights-and-resources/riba-plan-of-work/