Design

What this covers

Story is a design-build firm, so design is something the client buys, not overhead folded into a construction price. This area runs a project from first concept through to the completed design the build works from.

It exists so decisions happen in an order that holds: goals before concepts, concepts before detail, detail before anyone orders tile.

The four phases

A Design Build project runs through four phases. Each ends at a gate that must close before the next one begins.

Phase	What happens	Gate
1 — Project Proposal	Proposal approved, Design Contract signed, deposit paid	Contract signed and deposit paid
2 — Visioning	Questionnaires, as-builts, design kick-off, visioning presentation	Visioning package approved and construction budget updated
3 — Final Design	Finish presentation, showroom visits, final design package, Construction Contract	Contract signed and deposit paid
4 — Build	Construction	None — Build runs to project completion

There is no Schematic Design phase and no Design Development phase. Those are standard architectural stages and they appear in older documents, but KI does not track them. Part 3 walks all four phases step by step, including the tracker tasks in each.

Not every engagement runs all four. Story supports Design Build, Design Only, Build Only, Interiors Only, Furniture Only, and Story Select, and the phases follow whichever applies — see section 6.3.

The phase a project is in is tracked on the project itself through the Project Progress Tracker, so there is one answer to “where are we” rather than one per person you ask. The tracker states plainly that changes are visible to the client.

The Design Brief

Beta

The Design Brief is in beta: it is in production and still being tested with the design team. Expect changes, and report anything that looks wrong.

The Design Brief is the written record of what the client asked for at the job walk: what they want, the budget and timing they gave, their priorities, and the scope area by area. It lives on the project in the Admin Portal under Design → Design Brief, so the people who pick the project up after the walk read the client’s request rather than someone’s memory of it.

The brief has these parts:

• Project basics, client wants, budget and timing, and priorities, each edited in place and saved as you go.
• Scope by Area: each area of the home with its scope items, every item marked Must-Have, Nice-to-Have or Explore.
• Attachment Library: the walk’s photos and videos, each of which can be tagged to an area or a scope item.
• Support needed: what the design team needs from others, such as a budget range or a zoning review, raised as support requests on their own page.
• Export: the brief as a PDF.

Recording the job walk

The Job Walk tab is where the walk itself is captured. On the web, choose Enter the details here to type notes and drag in photos and videos, then End capture when the walk is done, or Discard to throw it away. A finished walk can be archived, and archived walks stay listed to reopen. A walk recorded on the iPad in the Field App shows here with its transcript and audio.

The Text a link to my phone option is shown but not switched on.

Don’t use “Analyze Notes with AI” yet

The Analyze Notes with AI button does not read your notes. It fills the brief with sample content: your notes copied in as the client’s wants, a budget of $850,000, a fixed priority order, and a single “Living Room” area with two scope items. It writes that into the real brief. If you have pressed it, check the budget, priorities and Scope by Area and put back what the client actually said.

Visioning

Design starts before drawings. Visioning captures what the client wants out of the space, how they actually live in it, and their taste — through conversation and through questionnaires that get answers on the record rather than in someone’s memory of a walkthrough. The standard set is the Exterior Design Questionnaire, the Interior Design Questionnaire, and the Homeowner Logistics Questionnaire, all built in the Forms module. A questionnaire can be answered by the client in the Client Portal or filled in by an admin on their behalf, and each completed form records which of the two happened — so a reader later knows whose words they are looking at. Once a form is locked or completed, the client sees it marked read-only in the Client Portal, with a lock on its card, so they know their answers are in.

The phase also carries the as-built site visit, which produces accurate measurements and a documented record of existing conditions, and the Design Kick-Off Meeting — often the first time the project design team meets the client face to face.

It ends with the visioning package: a PDF of proposed floor plans, inspirational imagery, renderings, exterior elevations, and an updated construction proposal covering any budget movement. The client views, comments on, and approves it in the Client Portal, and multiple revisions can be uploaded.

Visioning attaches to the lead, so when the work is won the design conversation carries forward into the project instead of starting over.

Final Design and finish selections

Phase 3 is where the interior finishes are settled and the construction number moves from budget to final price.

The finish presentation is the first in-depth look at the interior design and finish direction — tile, fixtures, paint, hardware, cabinetry. The plans are updated as the design progresses, but there is no budget update at this step. Showroom visits are added and scheduled in the Admin Portal, each carrying a date, time, address and named contact.

The phase ends with the final design package: one or more PDFs containing the complete drawing set and the final price. It is usually presented in person, uploaded through the Admin Portal, and approved in the Client Portal, and it can go through many revisions. It is the basis of the Construction Contract.

There is no selections module in KI today. Finishes are settled through the presentations above and documented in the final design package; the Legacy KI material catalog is present but unused and would need rebuilding before it could serve this workflow.

The Final Design tab, and why it matters in Build

During the Build Phase the Design section’s main job is to hold new documentation on the Final Design tab.

Keeping that tab current is critical: the Field App pulls the most current plans from it, so whatever is posted there is what the field builds from. Client visibility is set on each document individually, so posting a document and sharing it with the client are two separate decisions.

What the client sees

The phase the project is in, and the packages to review at the end of each one. Approvals are recorded with who approved and when; a rejection captures their reason in their own words, which feeds the next revision.

Design meetings are scheduled against the phase they belong to, so an invitation carries the context of what is being decided.

Related

• Part 3 — How a project runs — all four phases, step by step
• Estimating and proposals — how the work is priced
• Leads and intake — meetings and visioning forms before the work is won