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.

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.