Not similar to management discipline, it is really hard to recognize a body of official knowledge and science which deals with the fundamental issues and challenges confronted the architectural design; in spite of the lack of general methodic attitude, the essential forces influencing the architectural design process established guidelines and outline plan of works such as RIBA Outline Plan of Work (Royal Institute of British Architects [RIBA]) or RIBA Work Stages which describes the key tasks, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) as the organization in charge of regulation in the US, the Architects' Council of Europe (ACE), the European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE), etc. Unfortunately there is not such a regulation in Iran to provide a platform which supports the architectural mission as a social discipline by using a format to generate a foundation toward a standard syntax in the field of architectural design performance.
There have always been attention about hesitations and risk; based on the mentioned background, the architectural design project is not risk-free. The confronting strategy is the most important part of managing risk. While risks cannot be omitted, successful projects are those where risks are effectively managed. This paper presents some routine risks that may occur on the process of the architectural design projects in order to establish a model-oriented approach to manage and cope them.
It is concluded that architects must take the responsibility to manage their applicable risks in accordance with the architectural design process and work cooperatively from the possible phase onwards to address potential risks in time. Risk management is thus a notable tool to cope with such substantial risks. Risk management is about thinking ahead and analysing the risks and hesitations involved in a project, which is most important part of the quality management system. The results from this study show a necessity for improvements regarding risk management in architectural design projects.