Project Briefing in Russian Architectural Practice

Abstract

Today both international and national documents, regulating architectural design, impute the responsibility of the architect for the development of project briefs ("technical assignments" or "design assignments"). To what extent the status quo in Russian design institutions is in line with this prescription? How closely are our architects associated with "architectural programming", as this activity is called abroad, and how they estimate this job? In order to answer these questions, the author undertook a pilot questionnaire survey of Russian architects. Its' results are discussed in this paper. Almost all respondents are shown to participate in the development of project briefs - either by adjusting the initial data of the client, or by compiling a program "from scratch". Often this work is not paid. In half of situations, the customer does not submit even draft versions of the task to the architect, and in the rest - the format of one or two pages of text dominates. Methodically, "architectural programming" is very poorly supported, and the guidance materials available on this topic - are the latest, to which architects resort. Every second respondent agrees that "programming" is a duty of the architect and relies upon his contacts with the client and the accumulated experience in the development of project briefs. This procedure is a complex "study" rather than a technical "compilation" as it is used to be considered