On-line RIBA Client Design Advisors Directory
Let us help you find the right Client Design Advisor for your project.

Directory of RIBA Client Design Advisors
Click here to use our directory of Client Design Advisors. You can search by name, location and sector.

Tailored Search
The RIBA offers a free referral service tailor-made for your project. A short list of RIBA Client Design Advisors with the right skills and expertise to meet your requirements is drawn from our nationwide database of accredited Client Design Advisors. Please enter details of your project here

What is an RIBA Client Design Advisor?
An RIBA Client Design Advisor is usually an architect - but not the one designing the building - sitting on the client’s side of a project, independent of the supply team, monitoring and helping to manage the design process from its earliest stages.

It’s a vital role on all projects, for example Private Finance Initiative or Design and Build, where the clients access to the executive design team is often limited.

Through your RIBA Client Design Advisor you can maintain control over issues affecting the quality, value, sustainability and lifecycle of your building or project. An RIBA Client Design Advisor provides a single, effective interface with the design team and other professionals, working closely with you to understand your business objectives and articulating your needs with absolute clarity and consistency. An RIBA Client Design Advisor can also advise on other consultants and professionals in the construction, business, government and academic sectors.

RIBA Client Design Advisors are selected by the Royal Institute of British Architects from its international membership for their all-round procurement expertise, design experience, business knowledge and track-record of delivering results in construction projects. The RIBA evaluates and accredits all of its Client Design Advisors on an annual basis.

What will the RIBA Client Design Advisor do?
Safeguarding quality and value on a construction project is a major job – one that, as a client, you may not feel you have the time or experience to carry out. However, there are professionals on hand to do it, able to apply their own extensive experience of delivering similar scale projects elsewhere.

An RIBA Client Design Advisor will assist you from the earliest stages of a project, in strategic decision-making, stakeholder consultation, design brief development, budget setting, feasibility studies, procurement procedures and appraisals of design proposals. The Client Design Advisor acts as the hands-on champion for design quality on the project. The tasks an RIBA Client Design Advisor is qualified to undertake may include (but is not limited to):

• Helping to define an agreed set of project outcomes
• Working with you and other stakeholders to identify key design issues and project requirements
• Carrying out feasibility studies and option appraisals
• Inputting into financial planning, whole life costs and value for money assessments
• Advising on procurement methods
• Assisting with the preparation of a project programme, including allowing sufficient design development time
• Assisting with the evaluation of bids, the construction and design teams
• Checking budgets, design proposals, construction details and contract documentation