The client relationship: making plans a reality

By the time the board meeting is convened, the client-architect relationship should already be very well established

So you’re about to lead a board meeting of the team that will finally construct your building project. The plan is to become reality.

Whether you have experience of what a building project involves – including the nuts and bolts of construction itself to knowing what to expect from the various professionals entrusted to do the work – the meeting is a big milestone.

It’s not quite The Apprentice. To start with, you could all be meeting in a coffee shop instead of an actual boardroom, so it might seem less formal.

And, hopefully, there isn’t the tension that competing for Lord Sugar’s favour inevitably entails. After all, all the participants should be pulling in the same direction.

But even though the team assembled before you will be playing their various parts to create a glorious whole, that doesn’t mean each and every one of them has the same judgement calls, priorities or demands on their time and expertise.

Not quite the last supper

Picture the scene: as the client – the person or representative for the institution paying for the scheme – you’ll be sitting at the top of the table.

To your left is the Principal Designer, most likely your architect. They’ll have the plans and designs in front of them and will likely be accompanied by an engineer. Depending on the scheme’s scope and size, they may also be joined by an interior designer.

To your right is the Principal Contractor, probably unaccompanied, responsible for commissioning all the supplies and the litany of sub-contractors who will actually do the work.

“It’s not quite the last supper,” says Stockbridge Design & Build’s construction director Adeel Bhatti, “but that’s pretty much the scene.”

A great deal of work would have already taken place, possibly over many months, to settle the scheme’s design, scope and budget. The client’s first act would almost certainly be to find an architect they can work with. So, by the time the board meeting is convened, the client-architect relationship should already be very well established.

As Adeel explains, there are ‘different levels’ of architect, providing a greater or lesser range of services and expertise that’s usually reflected in their fees.

“They’re like solicitors – you pay for what you get,” says Adeel. “Some are cheap, cheerful and are technical drawers who will try and get the scheme through the planning process.

“They’ll understand all the rules and regulations, but not necessarily to the same extent as a top-rung architect with their own staff.” Some will employ or commission planning consultants to pitch schemes to local authorities to maximise their chances of navigating it through the planning process unscathed.

Constructing a viable plan

A key part of the architect’s role is to understand and extract what their paying customer wants and match it with a viable project they can afford.

Architects are trained to understand everything in terms of design, layout and how the designs should be presented. The client, however, may have a different way of looking at things, and not necessarily with a design eye, or find it difficult to express exactly what it is they want.

This may be even less straightforward if the architect is determined to put their own design stamp on the development, or where inexperienced clients are vague or unrealistic over what they want from the scheme. If unresolved, these tensions could surface at the meeting.

Says Adeel: “The client always wants everything for nothing, or what he can’t afford. But then the architect tries to translate – or transliterate – this into terms that can be practically understood.

“The architect is the mastermind, possibly with the interior designer. A successful architect can get into the client’s mind and produces a plan that reflects what the client wants. A not-so-successful architect may be less able to achieve that.”

And changing plans leading up to, or even at, the meeting, can add delay and cost to the overall scheme – in no small part because, for instance, alterations to the internal walls will require updates to the many drawings for each element of the scheme.

If these issues are settled, however, each team member will still be driven by different agendas and motivations. “What one has to try an be aware of is what the various participants want from that meeting – who’s pushing who, who’s wanting what out of it. As the client, you almost need to know their thought processes behind their actions.”