STUDY GUIDE · GKU 5
Professional practice study guide (Architecture)
This unit is about practising architecture as a profession and a business. It covers what an architect is engaged to do and how the services are divided into phases, the ethical duties to the public, the client and colleagues, the contracts that allocate risk between owner, designer and builder and how fees are set, how to get hired, how projects are led and coordinated, how cost and time are estimated and controlled, what the architect does on site, and how building codes, including the Saudi Building Code, govern design. Where practice is computational (fees, cost-plus and maximum-price payments, estimates and escalation, the critical path, payment certificates, occupant load and exit width) the guide teaches the calculation, with every rate, share and code factor given in the problem.
Structured by the official ETEC subject standard for this topic: every listed topic and learning outcome, with formulas, figures and worked examples. The full sections are available to members in the app.
SKU 5.1 · Professional practice in architecture
The profession and the architect's role
What the architect is engaged to do, the phases of service from briefing to handover (the AIA phases and the RIBA Plan of Work), how the fee is earned phase by phase, and how the profession is regulated in the Kingdom compared with international practice.
Ethics and codes of conduct
The duties a code of conduct places on an architect towards the public, the client, the profession and colleagues: safety, competence, honesty, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, gifts and bribery, fair competition, credit and copyright.
Contracts, fees and business law
How construction contracts allocate risk (lump sum, remeasurement, cost-plus, guaranteed maximum price) and how projects are procured (design-bid-build, design-build, construction management); how the payment under each is computed; and the business side of a practice: fees, company form, insurance, copyright and procurement law.
Resumes, portfolios, interviews and hiring
How architects are hired: the CV, the portfolio as a design project in its own right, the interview and design test, and what offices look for, from both sides of the table.
SKU 5.2 · Project management
Project management, leadership and BIM coordination
How a design project is led and coordinated: the triangle of scope, time and cost, team roles and responsibility matrices, meetings and records, BIM in practice (execution plans, levels of development, common data environments, clash detection), and outsourcing and international collaboration.
Cost estimation, budgeting and bidding
How construction cost is estimated at each stage (area rate, elemental, quantities), how a project budget is built from it with external works, contingencies, fees and furniture, how escalation is applied, how an overrun is closed, and how bids are evaluated.
Scheduling and time management: the critical path
How a project programme is built from activities, durations and dependencies; the forward and backward passes of the critical path method; float; what a delay or an acceleration does to the finish date; and the Gantt charts and milestones used to manage time.
Construction administration, site responsibilities and safety
What the architect does once construction starts: site visits and reports, requests for information, submittals and shop drawings, instructions and variations, payment certificates with retention, completion, snagging and the defects period; and the safety principles every party on site must apply.
SKU 5.3 · Codes and regulations
Building codes and regulations: applying them to a design
What codes, standards and regulations are, how they govern a building before, during and after construction (permits, inspections, occupancy), prescriptive and performance approaches, and the core life-safety calculation an architect makes: occupant load, number of exits, egress width and exit separation.
The Saudi Building Code
What the Saudi Building Code (SBC) is, how it is organised into parts, which parts govern occupancy and construction type, structure and foundations, energy and fire, and how it is applied through permits and inspection.