Schematic Design is the first step of working out a designed response to the site and its conditions. In architecture it takes the form of sketching to get ideas out. This process is often referred to as ideation.

Schematic design is the method of taking information and beginning to make a designed response to the site analysis and pre-design information gathering. This means synthesizing information and using experience, or intuition, along with references to make an architectural intervention into a site. This process of schematic design uses four major techniques to maintain a systematic approach to exploring and understanding a personal interaction with architecture.

Diagramming: is often translating ideas into simple representations on paper. These can be refined of not, but are used to get an idea out and begin to engage it on paper.

Sketching: is not about literally recording what is present on a site or thought, but is about capturing the essence of what an idea is in a more detailed manner than a diagram. These are often done in a sketchbook.

Drawing: is how we as students of architecture work through more and more layer of complexity. Drawings are a set of standard types that help others to understand our ideas at certain scales.

Modeling: is done concurrently with all of the other types of 2 dimensional representation and are used to explore questions that are not present in drawings.