Find that you’re spending much longer than planned on a feasibility study? Or that you have drifted into detailed design without formalising an appropriate form of appointment? This practical guide details the benefits of a feasibility study. Once you’ve secured the commission, how do you ensure you’re following current best practice? Aimed at architects, it identifies the pitfalls involved in undertaking a feasibility study and explains how to set boundaries, organise the process and manage clients’ aspirations. By featuring recent live projects, alongside advice from successful architectural practices, it illustrates how a feasibility study can help achieve positive outcomes and avoid the dangers of a poorly defined brief and service proposal. Presenting the client’s, as well as the architect’s, perspective, this publication highlights why a feasibility study is a sensible way of establishing viability prior to committing to a full-service commission. It underlines the significance of ‘adding value’ as an architect.
Introduction
Chapter 1. The RIBA Plan of Work
Case Study 1. Church reordering
Chapter 2. The Client’s perspective
Case Study 2. House extension
Chapter 3. Selling the service – the Architects view
Case Study 3. Community hall
Chapter 4. Fees and appointment
Case Study 4. Rowing centre
Chapter 5. Managing the process
Case Study 5. Research laboratories
Chapter 6. Communications and stakeholders
Case Study 6. Emergency services centre
Chapter 7. Gathering and assimilating data
Case Study 7. Reuse of heritage building
Chapter 8. Developing the client’s brief
Case Study 8. House on garden plot
Chapter 9. Option appraisals
Case Study 9. Classroom wing
Chapter 10. Monitoring and reporting back
Case Study 10. Office development
Chapter 11. The next stage
Case Study 11. Affordable housing Summary
Biography
Peter Farrall (BA, Dip Arch, RIBA) is a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool, where he is responsible for professional studies and a studio tutor on the BA and MArch courses. He is Past President of the Liverpool Architectural Society, served on the National Council and Conduct Committee of the RIBA, and acts as an examiner for the RIBA Part 3 in the UK and abroad.
