Being the Client
The client for refurbishment and building projects within the higher education sector is often less obvious than one might expect. Several different stake-holders may think of themselves as the primary client, based on their role as student, academic, department/faculty head, estates, senior management or governing board. It can be confusing to know who to consult on what issues and where decision-making responsibilities lie, bearing in mind that the focus will shift at different stages throughout the project. This confusion can extend beyond the institution, where the list of client participation continues to expand.

So who is the client?

In an academic workspace project, the client usually comprises the following groups:
  • Users - students, staff and visitors who use space
  • Estates - staff who procure and manage space
  • University - decision-makers who are responsible for academic and business success
For a more detailed explanation of what being a client entails, see Cabe’s guide Creating Excellent Buildings which can be downloaded from www.cabe.org.uk.

For an overview of the roles and responsibilities of key teams involved in an academic workspace project, see Project Teams.

Being an effective client

It can be helpful to think of a building project as a journey where the remit of all those involved is to plot the most feasible course of movement between five key parameters - need, space, quality, budget and time. This is done by participating teams who define and refine these parameters over and over again, each time bringing their destination into sharper focus. If communication is working well, all teams are likely to discover that their assumptions and/or priorities are not always shared. Key to a successful journey is each participant’s ability and willingness to understand and respect the different views and responsibilities of others, to develop shared criteria for success and to facilitate progress by focusing on areas of agreement rather than difference.

The role of the academic client

The key question that academics need to ask themselves throughout a project is ‘how will this learning landscape support the learning experience we want to achieve?’. To be able to answer this question, in a way that estates, university and project teams can act upon, academics need to be able to:
  • articulate their values
  • share their awareness of organisational strengths and limitations
  • identify the learning principles and activities important to them
  • specify what most staff should be able to do in the spaces to be provided
  • highlight any academic or organisational changes they wish to make
The learning and research skills that academics bring can greatly enrich understanding and increase the range of possible destinations. The ongoing experience that estates, design and project teams bring can focus these academic strengths on informing the specific situation at hand - a finite project with a beginning, middle and end.

Staying creative

Need, space, quality, budget and time - all five parameters are continually challenged throughout a project. Within the client team, users typically tend to be primarily focused on need and space, while estates and university will also want to keep a close eye on quality, budget and time. Academics may find they have strongly held views about what their needs are and the types of spaces required to support these needs. Where these views are seen to be in conflict with other priorities, it can be very tempting to hold onto an existing position in an intrenched rather than developmental way. When this happens all teams may need to remind themselves that the collective goal is to find an optimum fit between five competing parameters. Distinguishing between real and perceived needs, clarifying priorities into essential, important and nice-to-have categories, allowing unthinkable questions to be asked - these are all ways of inviting the possibility for new insights about what the future could be.
 
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