Foreword

Charles Eames once reflected that ‘without problems there would be no design’. So the job of design is to solve problems.

The RIBA Plan of Work has always looked to expand upon Eames perceptive and pithy declaration whilst remaining true to its principle. It offers a framework for the process and presentation of design, from inception through to delivery, whilst avoiding constraint. Solutions can be tailored to suit and decisions brought forward (I anticipate exactly that for planning submissions) or deferred as appropriate. For all the above reasons it has provided an important structure for the iterations of design that is understood by clients, consultants and architects alike.

In this context the need for the new RIBA Plan of Work can be explained by a structural change in the nature of how we perceive problems and how we create and record design as the response. The greatest single structural change to how we design, unsurprisingly in our audited world, is the rising importance of assessing risk. Risk and its identification, recording, transfer and ideally elimination through the design process is the new key design problem. This is reflected in construction by the transfer of risk from client to contractor and the consequent rise of design and build contracts.

Necessary, and as well received as it may be, the new Plan of Work, by changing fields of reference familiar to clients and consultants alike, creates at least initially, the problem of uncertainty. And it is this uncertainty that this new publication, one of a series, sets out to address in extended detail. To that end I believe it will be a useful, graphic and, through its illustrated case studies, a well-grounded and detailed exploration and explanation of the complex process of recording problems and their integrated design solution: from idea to detail without forgetting delight.

As another great designer, Raymond Loewy once remarked of design ‘you can never leave well enough alone’ and with this in mind this well-considered book will prove useful to designers in both answering the concerns and justifying the benefits of the new design for the RIBA Plan of Work.

Simon Allford
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris