ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the roles and responsibilities of the main participants in landscape contracts and examines how to identify client requirements and expectations and to establish and maintain a successful professional relationship. The initial impetus for a project will come from the client providing an outline brief. The client must indicate the location of the works; this may be anything from an individual feature of a small domestic garden to the infrastructure of a major town centre redevelopment. In each and every project the concerns of the client will almost inevitably revolve around time, cost, performance and quality. Depending upon the extent to which the client’s use of the site is excluded or restricted during the works the anticipated completion date can be a major factor. The client generally has full control over the design, specified standards, and quality assurance, frequently choosing to appoint a professional practitioner to exercise this control by acting as the client’s agent.
