Maintenance
Part of Architecture, craft, and design reporting guide
Architecture and design verification checklist
Architecture and design checklist for identities, credits, dates, materials, dimensions, drawings, alterations, access, quotations, images, and corrections.
What to take away
- Check the exact work, version, address, date, maker, and viewing conditions first.
- Match every credit to a role and project phase instead of copying an undifferentiated team list.
- Treat materials, methods, dimensions, dates, and styles as claims that need records or qualified confirmation.
- Label proposals, reconstructions, replacements, and later alterations at the sentence and caption level.
- Run the checklist again after headline, caption, metadata, and layout edits.
Use this checklist for reviews, profiles, process reports, building histories, exhibition pieces, and product tests. Mark each item verified, qualified, not applicable, or unresolved. Unresolved does not mean false. It means the copy must show the limit.
Identity and scope
- Official and commonly used title checked
- Address, site, collection, or current location confirmed
- Model, edition, production run, or project phase identified
- Visit or examination date recorded
- Areas entered and inaccessible areas noted
- Original, replica, prototype, reconstruction, or later version stated
Credits and roles
- Architect, designer, artist, maker, studio, or manufacturer spelled correctly
- Client, commissioner, owner, and operator distinguished
- Engineers, fabricators, contractors, craft workers, and consultants credited where relevant
- Grounds, interior, graphic, lighting, access, and conservation roles checked
- Former and current team members assigned to the correct period
- Interviewee authority matched to the claim
Do not infer authorship from prominence in a press kit. Ask who designed, detailed, approved, fabricated, installed, revised, and maintained the specific feature under discussion.
Credits and roles checks
- Architect, designer, maker, or studio spelled correctly
- Client, commissioner, owner, and operator distinguished
- Engineers, fabricators, and consultants credited
- Grounds, interior, lighting, and conservation roles checked
- Former and current team members dated correctly
- Interviewee authority matched to the claim
Site, form, and spatial description
- Setting and approach described from an identified viewpoint
- Overall form separated from close-range detail
- Exterior and interior conditions not blended
- Public, private, closed, and staff-only spaces distinguished
- Direction, floor, room, elevation, and route labels checked
- Weather, temporary works, crowding, or exhibition staging noted when material
Preservation Brief 17, the National Park Service architectural character checklist circulated by Seattle's historic preservation program, organizes visual investigation across overall aspects, close-range materials and details, and interior spaces, features, and finishes. That three-distance method is useful for reporting because it prevents a facade detail from standing in for the whole building.
Three-distance visual investigation
Overall aspects
- Setting and approach
- Identified viewpoint
- Form versus detail
- Overall form
- Exterior and interior
- Exterior condition
- Access zones
- Public and private
- Labels and routes
- Direction and floor
- Temporary conditions
- Weather and staging
Close-range materials
- Setting and approach
- Not applicable
- Form versus detail
- Close-range detail
- Exterior and interior
- Exterior condition
- Access zones
- Not applicable
- Labels and routes
- Elevation
- Temporary conditions
- Temporary works
Interior spaces
- Setting and approach
- Not applicable
- Form versus detail
- Not applicable
- Exterior and interior
- Interior condition
- Access zones
- Closed and staff-only
- Labels and routes
- Room and route
- Temporary conditions
- Crowding and exhibition staging
Dates, drawings, and change
- Design, construction, opening, renovation, and publication dates separated
- Approximate and disputed dates labeled
- Drawing type, author, date, and revision recorded
- Proposal and as-built condition distinguished
- Altered, replaced, reconstructed, relocated, and demolished features identified
- Current condition dated rather than written as permanent fact
Materials and construction
- Material claim tied to a record, maker, conservator, test, or qualified examination
- Finish separated from substrate
- Solid, plated, veneered, laminated, coated, cast, printed, and simulated materials distinguished
- Hand, tool, machine, mold, and digital processes described only where confirmed
- Joinery and structural claims reviewed by a qualified source when consequential
- Wear, patina, staining, defect, damage, and active deterioration not treated as synonyms
Dimensions and performance
- Units and conversions checked
- Object dimensions follow a stated order
- Building area, height, capacity, and cost retain their basis and date
- Product test sample and method disclosed
- Energy, durability, safety, and acoustic claims limited to available evidence
Provenance and ownership
- Ownership history does not become a claim of legal title without support
- Gaps remain visible
- Donor, seller, dealer, auction house, owner, and custodian distinguished
- Physical labels and marks compared with records
- Sensitive location or ownership information handled responsibly
The National Gallery of Art's provenance overview defines provenance as the history of ownership from creation to the present day, including former owners, dates of transfer, and the types of transactions that moved a work between them. Build the time line in those terms and let gaps stay visible rather than bridging them with assumptions.
Access, use, and people
- Step-free route checked beyond the entrance
- Doors, lifts, seating, restrooms, signage, sensory conditions, and assistance described separately
- User accounts framed as individual or sampled experience
- Community names and place names checked with responsible sources
- Displacement, demolition, labor, and safety claims receive a response opportunity
- Private details excluded when not needed for the public fact
Quotations, images, and final copy
- Recording and transcript checked against each quotation
- Edited quotations preserve meaning
- Photograph shows the stated feature and date
- Caption names reconstruction, rendering, model, or historical view
- Image license, creator, source page, and modifications recorded
- Headline, standfirst, metadata, pull quotes, and social copy fact-checked
- Correction path prepared for names, credits, captions, and syndication
Common questions
Must every material be laboratory tested?
No. Many can be confirmed through reliable records or qualified examination. State when a description remains visual or provisional.
How should conflicting completion dates be handled?
Find what each date marks, such as structural completion, occupancy, opening, or dedication, and label it.
Is a firm's project page enough for all credits?
It is a useful primary source for the firm's account, but specialist roles and disputed claims may need other records.
When should an unresolved detail delay publication?
Delay when the detail changes the central claim, identifies a person, creates legal or safety risk, or cannot be qualified honestly.
