ABSTRACT
How clients acquire professional services and construction works – and how an architect works within the procurement process – affects outcomes, quality, efficiencies, scoping, terms of employment and contract forms. This chapter presents a case study on Walter Menteth Architects, which is a micro-practice based in London. It provides information on research into contemporary procurement which was therefore to ascertain why the processes for the acquisition of services, supplies and works set up under European treaties. Their research on public procurement supply chains and permissible contract forms grew out of their work on housing, and their experience that these elements had become incapable of responding to needs and opportunity. The work has been underpinned by a hypothesis that greater access and hence creative engagement by society in general, and the architectural community in particular, to public projects can deliver better social, environmental and economic value and opportunity for all.
