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Archives can provide information on all stages involved in the construction of a building: on the aims and objectives of the architect; the choice of site; the day to day progress of work; the construction team; the problems encountered and solutions implemented; dimensions and quantities; materials used; interior design and layout.
 
Document types relating to individual buildings include contracts, specifications of works, bills of quantities, job correspondence (with the client, contractor, consultants, etc.), pamphlets, press cuttings and promotional material. Personal records such as correspondence and diaries may also document an architect's work in some detail and provide a more individual perspective than business records.
 
The Archive covers buildings throughout the country as well as a number of buildings abroad, generally built by British architects. Particular strengths geographically are London and the south-east, and historically the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The Collection seeks to represent the diversity of the built environment rather than only those buildings considered to be of particular merit or significance. However, it concentrates on buildings designed by architects considered to be of national or international significance. As well as new-build it contains a great deal of material on alterations and additions and restorations and repairs to buildings as well as documents relating to surveys and consultant work.

 

Specifications of works sometimes survive when the bulk of job correspondence has been destroyed. They provide a single contained source of information on materials used and construction details. The Archive includes collections that are almost entirely composed of specifications, such as those of the Dove Brothers (founded 1781) and Charles Cowles-Voysey (1889-1981). The specification for the Reform Club in London, by Sir Charles Barry, was copied out by an apprentice, A.W. Tanner, but the absence of the original makes it a unique document. The level of detail that it contains could be used to virtually recreate the interior of the Reform Club exactly as it was when built.
 
Buildings are often described in great detail in letters, reports and essays. The illustrations below are the front and first page of an essay by E.W. Godwin (1833-1886). His observations are detailed and thorough but he states that the church is St Peter's Church in Colerne, Wiltshire, whereas it is in fact St John the Baptist's Church.