LoadingHow it works
With Prefig, a concept moves through ten stages before it becomes a building — from a first brief to a finished argument. From your brief, Prefig proposes a set of meaningful directions — you choose one, and the step-by-step framework that follows builds on exactly that choice. What arrives at the end hasn’t drifted from it — it’s simply been carried all the way through.
01 · Project brief
You bring the real starting conditions — the site, the program, the ambition, whatever constraints already exist. Prefig sorts through all of it and turns it into a clear, structured brief: nothing invented, nothing resolved yet, just the facts stated plainly enough to build on.
02 · Concept directions
From that brief, a small number of real directions emerge — genuinely distinct positions, not variations on one idea wearing different colors. You choose one. That choice is the position everything after this has to answer to.
03 · Spatial strategy
The chosen direction gets organized: how space is arranged to serve the idea, not just the program. This is where a concept starts behaving like a plan.
04 · Massing logic
The strategy becomes volume. Massing decisions get made and justified against the spatial logic set in stage three — this is the point where an idea first has to survive contact with three dimensions.
05 · Form & material
The building takes shape — its form, and what it’s made of, developed together rather than one after the other. The geometry that gives it character and the material that reinforces that character are argued for the same way the massing was, not chosen at the end as finishing touches.
06 · Narrative
The argument gets stated in words, in parallel with the geometry. If you can’t say why the building looks the way it does, the concept isn’t finished yet — this stage forces that sentence into existence.
07 · Diagram strategy
The logic gets made visible: circulation, program distribution, the reasoning behind massing options, translated into diagrams that read clearly on their own, without you standing next to them explaining.
08 · Visual studies
Atmosphere gets tested — how the space actually feels, not just how it’s organized. This is where the argument is checked against experience.
09 · Precedents
Outside intelligence gets brought in deliberately: real buildings that sharpen or challenge the position, not a moodboard assembled for its own sake.
10 · Final design argument
Everything converges into a concluding synthesis. This isn’t a rendering — it’s the position, made defensible, in full.
Underneath all ten stages sits a private evaluation lens, checking each new stage against the spatial logic you established in stage two, and flagging it the moment something drifts. Every alternative and every revision stays in the project the whole way through — nothing gets discarded to keep the argument tidy. By stage ten, what you’re looking at is still standing on the position you started with.
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