Feasibility & Programming Studies
Answer it before
the design money.
Can the building carry it? Should you renovate or replace? Studies that resolve the question before a design team gets mobilised.
The most expensive drawings are the ones produced for a scheme that was never viable. A feasibility study is a small piece of work placed deliberately in front of a large one.
Typical questions: can this structure take another floor, can this floor take that equipment, can this building be converted to that use, and is renovating it actually cheaper than replacing it.
Programming studies
Where the question is what should be built rather than whether it can be, programming establishes the requirements, the constraints and the order of magnitude before anyone commits to a scheme.
Answered honestly
A feasibility study that always concludes the project is feasible is a marketing document. Where the answer is no, or is yes but not for the budget in mind, that is what the report will say.
Questions these studies answer
- Can the existing structure carry an additional floor or a new load?
- Renovate or replace, compared on cost, disruption and remaining life
- Change of use, whether the structure supports the new occupancy and its loads
- Adaptive reuse viability for older and historic buildings
- Equipment and rooftop loads against existing capacity
- Order of magnitude cost for each option considered
- Programming, defining requirements and constraints before design
Common Questions
Straight answers
How much detail is in a feasibility study?
Enough to make the decision confidently and no more. It is deliberately not a design. The whole economic argument for it is that it costs a fraction of the design it is protecting.
Can you compare renovation against new construction?
Yes, and that is one of the most common uses. Because the firm also does cost estimating, the comparison carries real numbers rather than impressions.
What if the answer is that it will not work?
Then you have saved the cost of finding out later. That is the study doing its job, and it will say so plainly.
Do you work with our architect on this?
Frequently. Feasibility often runs alongside early architectural work, with the structural constraints shaping what gets explored.
Considering a building you do not own yet?
Feasibility before purchase is the version of this that saves the most.