ABSTRACT
Cost management does not take place in a vacuum. The activities of cost control and cost planning form part of a total process, called the development process, which conceives and delivers the final project to the client and to the market. Many external factors can influence the form and type of development that is permitted to be built on a particular site. In effect, the design solution is never unrestricted. It is carried out within a framework of constraints. Some constraints are onerous, others are less so. The problem for the design team is to balance the need for high-quality design and what all participants would like to do, within the constraints imposed by the economic, technical, topographic, social, political and administrative environments we all find ourselves in.
