What working with an architect actually looks like — from the first site visit through move-in.
For clients who have not hired an architect before, the process often feels more opaque than it needs to be. What exactly does an architect do between the first meeting and the day construction starts? What decisions does the client make, and when? How does the design get from a sketch to a permitted set of construction drawings?
Form & Function’s residential design process is organized into four clear phases, each with defined deliverables and structured opportunities for client input. The goal is not to hand clients a finished design — it is to build the design together, with the client’s knowledge of how they want to live and the architect’s knowledge of what the site allows and what good construction requires.
See the firm’s full approach to architecture services for a complete overview, or read through the phase descriptions below for what each step involves in practice.
The honest answer is: longer than most clients expect when they start, and worth it when the process is done right.
A realistic timeline for a full custom home in WNC — from initial site visit to move-in — runs 18 to 30 months depending on project complexity, the client’s decision-making pace, the permitting jurisdiction, and contractor availability. Breaking that down by phase gives a clearer picture of where the time goes.
The design and documentation phase — site analysis through completed construction documents — typically takes 4 to 8 months for a custom home. Simpler projects with straightforward sites, clear programs, and decisive clients move through the process faster. Complex projects with challenging terrain, large programs, or significant sustainable design integration take longer. This phase is where the design decisions get made, which means rushing it typically produces worse construction outcomes, not faster ones.
Permitting varies significantly by jurisdiction. Buncombe County residential permits typically process in 4 to 8 weeks for straightforward projects. The City of Asheville runs longer — 6 to 12 weeks is common for residential permit review, and projects that trigger design review or historic district approval add additional time. Plan for permitting as part of the project schedule rather than treating it as a fixed constant.
Construction for a custom home in WNC typically runs 10 to 18 months depending on size, complexity, and contractor capacity. Mountain sites, where materials delivery and equipment access are more constrained than on flat lots, tend toward the longer end of that range. The construction oversight phase — when Form & Function is actively engaged with the site and the contractor — runs concurrently with construction.
The most reliable way to hit a target move-in date is to start the design process significantly earlier than the date requires, allow for realistic permitting timelines, and select a contractor before construction documents are complete so that bidding and contracting happen in parallel with final document preparation.
One of the most misunderstood aspects of working with an architect is what the architect’s role is once construction begins. Many clients assume the architect’s work ends when the permits are issued — in fact, the construction administration phase is one of the most valuable services the architect provides.
During construction, Form & Function performs regular site visits — typically every two weeks for active projects, more frequently at critical construction milestones — to verify that the work is proceeding in accordance with the design documents. This is not a formality. Construction in WNC, particularly on mountain sites, regularly produces conditions that weren’t fully resolved in the documents or that differ from what was anticipated: rock encountered during excavation, existing framing revealed during demolition that doesn’t match the assumed structure, or materials substitutions proposed by the contractor that need design review before approval.
Responding to contractor RFIs (requests for information) is a standard part of construction administration. When contractors encounter conditions not covered by the drawings, they submit RFIs; the architect responds with clarifications, supplemental sketches, or design modifications as needed. The speed and quality of RFI responses directly affects how efficiently construction proceeds.
Shop drawing review is another construction administration service. Structural steel, prefabricated elements, windows, doors, and mechanical equipment all come with shop drawings from the manufacturer or fabricator that the architect reviews for compliance with the design intent before the materials are fabricated or installed.
Project close-out — punch list review, certificate of occupancy coordination, systems commissioning, and warranty documentation — completes the construction administration phase and ensures the building is fully functional and documented when the client takes occupancy. Form & Function’s approach to construction oversight covers what this looks like across different project types.
Every Form & Function residential project begins with a site visit — the architect comes to the property before any drawing begins. This is not a courtesy call; it is a working meeting where the team walks the land, assesses the conditions that will shape the design, and has a direct conversation with the client about their goals, their budget, and their design priorities.
On a mountain site, the site visit covers topography and slope angle, solar orientation and seasonal sun angles, drainage patterns and water flow, view corridors and obstructions, construction access, and any site-specific permitting conditions (ridge setbacks, mountain protection ordinances, flood zone proximity). On a remodel or addition project, the visit includes a thorough documentation of existing conditions — measured floor plans, structural assessment, MEP rough-in locations, and any conditions that will affect the new work.
The site visit also produces the beginning of a budget conversation. An experienced architect who has walked a site can give meaningful cost guidance — which site conditions will add cost, which design approaches are more buildable at the client’s budget, which program elements need to be scaled to fit the financial parameters — that a designer working from a description cannot.
Schematic design is where early concepts get developed, tested, and refined. The phase typically involves multiple rounds of drawings — rough floor plan arrangements, site plans showing how the building sits on the lot, massing studies showing the building’s form from the exterior — with client review and feedback between each round.
During schematic design, Form & Function reviews applicable zoning and building code requirements, consults informally with contractors on cost and constructability, and positions the building for optimal solar orientation, view capture, and minimal site disturbance. The goal of this phase is a design direction that both the client and the architect are confident in — one that fits the program, performs on the site, and is buildable within the budget — before the investment of full construction documentation begins.
Construction documents are the full set of technical drawings and specifications that contractors build from and building departments review for permits. Form & Function prepares residential construction documents using Revit, a BIM (Building Information Modeling) platform that maintains a coordinated three-dimensional model of the project across all drawing types.
The Revit model coordinates architectural drawings with structural engineering, civil engineering, and MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) systems — which means changes made in one discipline are reflected automatically across all the drawings that depend on them. This coordination reduces the conflicts and inconsistencies between drawing sets that cause contractor confusion, change orders, and construction delays.
For clients, construction documents are the translation of the design into a language contractors can price and build. Their completeness and accuracy directly determine how competitive and how reliable the bids the client receives will be.
Construction oversight and administration is the phase where the design becomes a building. Form & Function manages the bidding and contractor selection process, helps the client evaluate bids and select a contractor, and then engages actively with the construction through regular site visits, RFI responses, and shop drawing reviews.
The independence of the architect from the contractor — working for the client rather than for the builder — is the structural feature that makes construction administration valuable. When questions arise about whether the work meets the design intent, the architect’s judgment is informed by the design process and directed toward the client’s interests.
Revit is a Building Information Modeling (BIM) software platform that maintains a coordinated three-dimensional model of a building rather than a collection of separate two-dimensional drawings. For residential clients, the practical significance is this: because all the drawings come from a single coordinated model, conflicts between what the structural drawings show and what the architectural drawings show — or between where the architectural drawings put a wall and where the mechanical drawings route a duct — get caught in the design phase rather than discovered during construction.
Traditional two-dimensional CAD drafting produces drawings that can drift out of coordination with each other as design changes accumulate. A wall that moves in the floor plan might not get updated in the elevation, which might not trigger an update in the structural drawings, which might not cascade into the reflected ceiling plan. Each missed coordination is a potential field conflict — and field conflicts during construction cost money and time.
BIM-based documentation is not a novelty — it has been standard practice in commercial architecture for two decades — but it is not universal in residential practice, particularly in smaller firms. Form & Function’s use of Revit for residential construction documents produces more coordinated, more buildable document sets and reduces the construction administration workload that results from document conflicts.
The division of responsibility between the architect and the general contractor is one of the most common areas of confusion for clients who have not been through the construction process before.
The architect is responsible for the design — for translating the client’s program into a building that works on the site, meets code requirements, and achieves the design intent. The architect is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the construction documents. During construction, the architect is responsible for reviewing the work for compliance with the design documents and for resolving design questions that arise.
The general contractor is responsible for the construction — for building what the drawings specify, managing subcontractors, procuring materials, maintaining the construction schedule, and delivering a building that meets the construction contract requirements. The contractor is responsible for construction means and methods — the specific ways in which the work gets done — and for the safety of the construction site.
What the architect is not responsible for is the contractor’s performance. The architect can identify work that does not meet the design documents and require its correction — but the architect does not manage the contractor’s day-to-day work or guarantee the contractor’s schedule, budget, or quality of execution. Read more about the architect vs. contractor distinction for a fuller explanation of how these roles work together.
A first meeting with an architect for a residential project should feel like a working conversation, not a sales presentation. The most productive first meetings are ones where the client has prepared to share the things the architect needs to know — and where the architect is prepared to listen and ask good questions rather than lead with portfolio images and capability statements.
What to bring to a first meeting: a description of your program (how many bedrooms, what spaces matter most, how you want to live in the home), any reference images or precedents that communicate your aesthetic preferences, a realistic understanding of your budget range, and information about your site if you have one. You do not need a complete brief or a finished concept — that is what the design process is for.
What you should expect the architect to do: ask questions about your program and priorities, ask about your site and any constraints you are aware of, share preliminary observations about how your program, site, and budget relate to each other, and describe how their process works. A good first meeting produces a clear picture of whether the architect understands your goals and whether working together makes sense.
Contact Form & Function to schedule an initial conversation, or meet the team first to get a sense of who you would be working with.
The most important thing an architect can do at the beginning of a residential project is understand the site — not from a survey, not from Google Maps, but from actually walking the land.
A site visit produces information that no document can fully capture: how the morning light hits the slope, where the ground is soft from seasonal drainage, which tree is worth designing around and which ones are already stressed, how the approach to the site feels from the road, what the views actually look like from different elevations on the property. This information shapes every design decision that follows — where the building sits, how it is oriented, where the primary windows face, how the driveway approaches the entry, what the relationship between indoor and outdoor space should be.
Architects who skip the site visit — or who rely on topographic surveys and aerial photography rather than direct observation — miss the qualitative information that separates a building designed for a specific place from one that could have been designed for any place. In WNC’s mountain terrain, where every lot is different and the site conditions are the primary design generator, this distinction matters more than it does almost anywhere else.
Learn more about how Form & Function approaches the early project process and what the site visit phase involves for residential projects across different site types.
Full architectural services — site analysis, schematic design, construction documents, and construction administration — produce the best outcomes for custom homes, significant additions, and complex remodels where design quality, site responsiveness, and construction coordination all matter. Permit-only drawing services (preparing construction documents for a design that is already defined) are appropriate for simpler projects with clear programs, straightforward sites, and clients who have enough construction knowledge to manage the process without design support. If you are unsure which category your project falls into, a brief initial consultation is usually enough to answer the question.
Stock plans and online floor plans are designed for generic sites and average programs — they may be a useful starting point for visualizing your preferences, but they rarely translate well to specific WNC mountain lots without significant modification. In most cases, adapting a stock plan to a specific site costs nearly as much as designing from the site up and produces a worse outcome. That said, bringing reference plans to the first meeting is useful for communicating spatial preferences and scale — the architect can use them as one input among many without treating them as a binding program.
The process works best when clients are actively engaged, particularly during schematic design. The design decisions made in the early phases — building placement, major spatial relationships, primary aesthetic direction — are the ones that are hardest and most expensive to change later. Clients who defer heavily to the architect during schematic design and then re-engage during construction documents often end up requesting changes that could have been resolved much more efficiently earlier. Structured review milestones at the end of each design phase keep the client engaged without requiring daily involvement.
Budget alignment is an ongoing part of the design process, not a one-time check at the end. Form & Function consults informally with contractors during schematic design specifically to test cost assumptions before the design gets detailed. If early cost feedback indicates the program is running over budget, the schematic design phase is the right time to resolve it — through program adjustments, material substitutions, or phasing decisions — rather than discovering the issue when bids come back after full construction documents are complete.
Yes — contractor selection is part of Form & Function’s construction administration services. The firm manages a competitive bid process, reviews bids for completeness and accuracy, and helps the client evaluate proposals from a position of design knowledge. The architect’s knowledge of what the project requires makes contractor evaluation more than a price comparison — it includes assessing whether each contractor’s understanding of the project matches the design intent, and whether their experience and capacity are appropriate for the project’s complexity.
