First step in any design is the preparation of the architectural drawings.
In these drawings the architect marks tentative structural beams and columns and specifies their size and marks their approximate location as per his knowledge.
Then these drawings are passed to the structural engineer whose first step is to study these drawings and notice the marked position of the beams and columns. Generally a structural engineer tries to follows the things as given by architect so that there is no change in the elevation and other drawings prepared by him.
But when its not possible the engineer has to change the size of the beams and the column. These drawings are known as Preliminary Architectural Drawings.
After this both engineer and the architect discuss whether the proposed plans are feasible in field or not.
If the changes are acceptable to both, then the architect incorporates the changes in his drawings and prepares the plan, elevation and section drawings according to finally decided position of the beams and columns.
After this drawing is sent to field for execution. These drawings are known as construction drawings. Then these drawings are sent to structural engineer for structural design.
Typical construction project involves following stages for implementation:
selecting a project consultant.
site selection
selection of project architects, construction consulatnts/ structural designers
layout planning
estimation and costing
soil investigation to study its suitability for the project
architectural detailing of each and every component
structural design of all structures
construction planning/ schedule
preparation of DNIT (Document of Notice Inviting Tenders)