How Does an Architect Write a Field Report?

During construction the architect visits the site to become generally familiar with the progress and quality of the work and to report what it finds to the owner. The AIA's summary of G711–2018, Architect's Field Report, describes the form as a record of periodic or daily site visits, used to record progress and quality observations, deviations from the contract documents and the schedule, and defects and deficiencies observed. AIA's owner-architect agreement sets the limit that shapes every report: the architect is not required to make exhaustive or continuous on-site inspections to check the quality or quantity of the work.

That limit is why the words matter. A field report that says the architect "inspected the framing and found it acceptable" claims more than a two-hour visit can support, and it can be read later as an approval. The rest of the architect's job during construction is in the architect's guide to construction administration.

Keep "requested action" inside your role. Asking for work to be corrected to meet the documents is the architect's call; telling the contractor how to sequence or build it is not. A change to the design goes out as an architect's supplemental instruction or a change, not as a field report note.

Read the verbs: "observed", "requested", "not observed this visit". Item 8.4 stays open because the architect didn't go to the roof, not because it was checked and found wanting. And item 9.2 points to the open RFI instead of answering a design question in the field.

Follow-up is where reports fail. Connecticut's construction administration manual has the construction administrator who runs state jobs "promptly prepare a written report" of work found unsatisfactory, faulty or defective, and follow up "to be certain the issue isn't simply reported on and the need for resolution overlooked". The same discipline works for an architect: an item stays on every report until it is closed.

When an owner's inspector rejects work, the procedure is more formal. On Los Angeles public works, a Notice of Non-Compliance can hold payment for the work in question; a field report is lighter, and it records what the architect observed and asked for.

• "Inspected" and "approved". Write what you observed, and leave approval to the documents that give it.
• Not saying where you didn't go. A silence about the roof can read as no problems on the roof.
• Items without a reference. "Flashing incomplete" means more with the sheet and spec section next to it.
• Answering design questions in the report. Send them through the RFI, so the answer reaches everyone who builds from it.
• Sending it a week later. A report that arrives after the wall is closed can't change the wall.

A good field report says what the architect observed, where, and what it is asking for, tied to the sheet or spec section, in words that don't claim an inspection the visit didn't make. Number every item and carry it until it closes.

Conflo puts the design team on the same job as the GC and the owner, with RFIs and submittals answered in one place. Join the waitlist to try it.

Join the waitlist

1. Summary: G711–2018, Architect's Field Report — AIA Contract Documents. Read October 22, 2026.
2. 0600 Construction Administration Procedures Manual, §2.4 (inspection and reporting of deficient work) — State of Connecticut Department of Administrative Services. Read October 22, 2026.
3. Project Delivery Manual, 17.6 Notices of Non-Compliance and Work Stoppage — City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Engineering. Read October 22, 2026.