Pre-Design is where the site analysis meets the need for information. By looking into the specifics of a design it will be better informed. For example using the website presented here would most likely fall into this part of the design process, but can be used at any time as a reference.

This is the time to collect all of the relevant information that you can find to inform your design and the process of the current work.

Preform research, determine and respect design constraints, determine and find available of appropriate materials. Research can be done in design practices, architectural typologies, specific architects that influence your work, building systems to include.

Constraints come from a combination of the prompts or client desires as well as constraints or ideas or interests you bring to the project as well. The prompt may ask for you to design a space, but how and what and why do you make that designed response unique?

Materials are often an appropriate way to bring constraints to the physical space and bring certain meanings with them as a part of their traditional usage. Some good ones to start with are concrete, wood, and metal.

Some interesting architects: Alvar Aalto, Calatrava, Glen Murcutt, Corbuiser, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Daniel Libeskind, Richard Meier, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Luis Barragan, Legoretta, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Buckminster Fuller, and Josef Albers

In summary three main things: perform research in precedent or other desired topics, acknowledge design constraints, and available materials