Client Champions

Summary

My name is Sarah Williams.

I'm an architect and an RIBA client advisor.

I ran big practice for many years as a partner

and set up my own consultancy over 10 years ago.

My role now is very much supporting

and helping clients navigate their way through, uh,

building projects and, uh, giving independent

and objective advice.

So a project brief is one of the most critical elements

of any built project, any built environment project.

And it's, it's a, it should be a written document.

It helps you articulate as a client what you want.

It's the why, really, what do you want to achieve

and what are your objectives in achieving that?

And the strategic brief is the first brief

that you ought to be considering.

And that is right at the commencement of a project,

the RIBA plan of work, which is through stages zero

to seven, you would be creating your strategic brief.

Join those initial stages.

It will sit alongside in most cases, particularly

with larger complex projects, a business case.

And you should also be looking at the viability

of the project, the feasibility of the project,

and making sure that your project brief

aligns with your budget.

So the project brief is critical in de-risking your project.

So with larger projects

and larger organisations, you will probably have a number

of stakeholders in the early stages.

The strategic brief is very important

in getting all your stakeholders around a table to buy in

and agree that vision and objectives.

If you don't do that, you're likely

to have a much trickier time

as you move through the project.

And what I see clients doing is, I call it optimism bias,

where they start a project

and they, they have an idea about what they want,

but they don't actually know

how much it's going to cost them.

So they go down the route

of bringing an architect on developing a scheme,

and then they get the cost plan

and realise that they can't afford it.

So they have to go back to the beginning.

So what I tell my clients is, as I say,

]you develop the project brief, you do a feasibility

or a viability to check

that your project brief aligns with your budget.

And once you have that, then you're much more likely

to have a smoother process

and journey through the next stages.

So the project brief, you want

to be starting at the absolute outset of your project.

You may not even have a project at that point in time.

You may believe you need a new building,

and that may not be the case once you've looked at viability

and project brief requirements.

So you really need to start it

before the design team is involved,

and you need to be doing that piece of work

as a client body together in defining

and scoping out the project brief.

And then you follow the process, the design process.

It's iterative, develop your project brief, articulate it,

think about it, set your

objectives, why you're doing this project.

Don't worry about how you're gonna achieve it.

The first steps are why you are doing it

and what you want to achieve.

Commit it to paper and make sure you can afford it.

That would be my first piece of advice.

My second piece of advice would be

for clients is you are gonna have a lot of decisions

that you're going to need to make through this process.

Many clients think that when they've got a design team on

board, they can leave it to the design team

and they won't need to spend much time on the project.

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

As a client, the the design team will recommend to you

what they believe the the right solutions are.

But as a client, you need to make those decisions.

And it could be from the general layout of the floor plans

through to the light fitting that they're going

to be putting in front of you.

So make sure you allow enough time as a client organization

to let that happen because it is quite time consuming.

The third piece of advice

for less experienced clients would be,

it's a challenging process.

Nobody gets it all right?

And so there's always people out there

to help and support you.

I think having an experienced person by your side,

if you've not done a big project

before, will be well worth it.

Summary

My name is Ayo Alu.

I'm the Director of Design technical and Innovation,

and I work for Clarine Housing Group

for the UK's largest registered social housing provider.

I think the shared vision of clients

and contractors is truly the way to bring about

a successful end result in a project.

And we've seen that more

and more with, um, different forms of contract

and more partnering arrangements being brought forward.

So as A-C-I-O-B member

and the CIOB client champion, working for a client

for me is the ultimate way of, um, ensuring

that we can have full synergy across the project lifecycle.

At the start of the Building Safety Acts introduction, a lot

of people thought it was all about paperwork

and filling in paperwork

and, uh, proving that you'd done something.

The truth is, as an industry,

we'd already given an undertaking to do all

of these activities anyway.

However, somewhere we got lost in doing that paperwork

and not really thinking about what was on that paperwork

or whether that paperwork should be audited or not.

So what the Building Safety Acts has done is allowed us

to refresh our thinking, really look at

how accountable we are, really look at

what actions we are taking as stakeholders, building owners,

asset managers in the safety of buildings for residents

and for operators.

I think that the introduction

of the Building Safety Act will impact positively on the

quality of outcomes as well,

because as part of the process of the Building Safety Act,

we are also taking the opportunity

to enhance our own internal quality

management procedures as well.

Similarly, with the use of the design

and build, um, contracting style, we see again,

sometimes a lapse in focus around quality management.

And so we feel that as clients we are perfectly placed

to demand high levels of quality, to oversee high levels

of quality, and to ensure

that throughout the whole project's lifecycle quality is

managed, recorded,

and left in such in a, in a position which is beneficial

for both the end user and for us as asset managers.

Moving forward, I think one of the things that a lot

of people misunderstand is that the regulations apply to all

of us, be you client, be you a member of the

detailed supply chain construction supply chain.

You too play a role in

how the Building Safety Act comes together in terms

of making sure you're compliant with the regulations, uh,

in ensuring that your quality

and safety standards within your business are ready

for adoption and,

and compliant with the Building Safety Act.

The first piece of advice, I would say, is

to give yourself time.

Yeah. The ACT requires you to think ahead.

That's one of the main things about the Building Safety Act.

It requires you to plan for the introduction

of new processes, people moving into buildings,

people managing buildings, so on and so forth.

So it gives yourself plenty of time plan for it.

I would also suggest that you liaise

with the regulator wherever possible.

Um, speak to colleagues in building control as well,

who may also have, uh, links in with the regulator

and they could shed some lights on any

queries or questions that you have.

Most of all, it's important that you collaborate.

You speak to partner organizations, you speak

to other stakeholders within the project

to get a clearer understanding of where you need to be.

Finally, there are companies who can provide legal advice

for you if you really are uncertain about how

to ensure compliance.

So there are legal bodies

and there are, um, consultant bodies who can come in

and give you formal advice backed with PI as to

how you should work, um, with the Building Safety Act.

Summary

My name is Kenneth Kinsella.

I am the Director of Capital Development at the

London School of Economics.

When I was a younger young project manager in the higher

education system, there was very limited networks, um,

availability and the association university Director

of Estates, A UDE was created

and that created a vehicle for us to sort of come together

for about six years, couple years back,

I was the inaugural chair of the Capital Group

and part of my reason for doing that was sharing knowledge,

doing briefing notes,

and just sharing best practice are my experience with those

entering the sector, achieving, um, net zero, uh,

in our estate.

It's the right thing to do, especially with climate change.

Uh, we are in institution doing research

in this subject matter.

So effectively we have to walk the walk.

Um, the advantages to us are, uh, reputational, um,

attracting students and staff and retention of staff

and students, because we're actually leading in this

example, it has financial benefits in terms

of reducing energy and reducing the carbon footprint.

Um, but the main thing, it is the right thing to do.

The primary challenges for the LSE meeting net zero are

one hour location, where a central London inner city campus

in a conservation area with several listed buildings.

So doing interventions into those buildings comes

with its own complications.

Uh, additionally, the, uh,

technology is changing all the time.

So selecting the rice technology

that has actually durability can be quite an,

uh, an interesting challenge.

The existing Greek capacity, um, everything is moving

to electric now in this location.

Um, so doing surveys would be important.

That is a challenge. Changing systems to, from gas to

electric, all electric is only going to take you so far.

The important part is the fabric upgrades,

and that in Central London is quite a challenge

where we're having to adapt existing buildings,

ex on the external.

The lessons we've learned at the LSC in achieving net zero

is be more ambitious.

Set a set a challenging targets to the design consultants,

allow more time for surveys, um,

and undertake as much as you can as early

as possible in the projects.

Thoroughly survey the existing stock structurally

and services just to understand the potential

for the existing buildings.

Uh, gas boilers are generally in the basement

and heat pumps are generally on the roof,

so there's a total change in approach.

Consider the infrastructure in the local area

and actually forward plan.

What other systems are going

to change within the existing stock.

As an example, catering may well be gas fired today,

but it's now moving to electric,

which then increases the electrical demand,

not just on the hessing systems,

but actually then on the catering systems as well.

My advice to clients would be consider reuse, approach it

with an open mind, and don't set the bar too low.

Consider the existing infrastructure as early as possible.

Select sustainability consultants with a proven track record

of delivering net zero,

and more importantly, having a data set behind them

to evidence base the proposals they're putting forward.