ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on contracts and some of the wider wrongs that come under the law of torts but may directly affect architects and designers. Design and construction projects tend to follow a recognisable process/lifecycle, and architects tend to carry out the similar professional services along the way. As a result the profession has developed a standardised approach to both, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Outline Plan of Work (OPoW). The OPoW is useful in that the design team and construction professionals readily understand its stages and the work expected of them at each. The RIBA’s standard professional contracts are based on the key work stages in the OPoW. Although the law of obligations has three components, contract, tort and restitution, the last only comes in to play in exceptional circumstances. Parliament’s interventions through Acts of parliament are rare in what is essentially an area of private law.
