The Architect’s Guide to Running a Job

Abstract

It is a privilege to follow Sir Hugh Casson’s Foreword to the original publication of this book with a Preface for this new edition. It is a tribute to the author that this book remains as fresh and as relevant now as it did then. Despite the fact that at present there are more bespoke arrangements being used in the building industry than there were, this volume in essence provides reliable guidance to architects in the sequence of designing, arranging and administering a building project from inception to the client’s occupation of the completed building. The essentials of this book, like many of the best arranged things in life, possess a certain timelessness due to the author’s care in the use of language and his ability to tease out with precision what the reader needs to know and act upon at any given stage in the process. When a colleague and I set up in practice we purchased the book and it became a reference of regular use being more often off the shelf than on. Now in Academe, I have lost several copies to students studying for their Professional Practice Examinations—on loan but too useful to return! This book finds its way virtually automatically onto many Professional Practice subject Book Lists as required reading in Schools of Architecture. The delight for both students and more mature practitioners is in the visual diagrams which accompany and inform the text. The author has updated the text to take account of the inevitable changes in legislation and the law affecting building. From having personal practical experience of this book in use I have no hesitation in recommending it to both youthful students and those in practice as an architectural ‘vade mecum’ that will serve well at all stages.