CURRENT STAGE / 01 / RAPID FEASIBILITY AND STRATEGY & BRIEFING

Feasibility for Thames Water is about confirming that the new building they are considering can fully support their operational needs, future growth, and compliance requirements before any commitments are made. At this stage, we review how the new premises will align with current processes, equipment, regulatory obligations, and space requirements to ensure the move is both practical and beneficial.

Our methodology explained

The initial questionnaires play a crucial role, as the detail and accuracy of Thames Water’s responses give us the insight needed to map existing workflows, identify gaps, and understand day‑to‑day operational pressures. Throughout this early stage, we refer back to the Thames Water Project Charter, which outlines the project’s core purpose, scope, objectives, and key stakeholders, ensuring our work stays aligned with Thames Water’s overarching direction. These early inputs directly shape the User Requirement Brief and allow us to design a space and strategy that genuinely reflects how the teams work. Ultimately, strong engagement now helps avoid costly redesigns later and ensures the new building is planned around real needs rather than assumptions.

General Staff Questionnaire

We carry out the staff questionnaire to gain a clear and detailed understanding of how Thames Water teams currently work and what they will require from the proposed new facility. The survey captures information across all operational areas including laboratories, logistics, facilities management, administration, and leadership to ensure that every function is accurately represented.

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These responses give us insight into real workflows, movement patterns, equipment needs, space usage, and pain points that cannot be identified through drawings or technical documents alone. They also highlight issues within the existing building, such as segregation challenges, storage pressure, welfare limitations, maintenance risks, and operational constraints.

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During this process, we still refer back to the Thames Water Project Charter to ensure the information we collect aligns with the project’s defined purpose, scope, objectives, and stakeholder expectations. By gathering this level of detail early, we can identify gaps, determine required improvements, and shape a User Requirement Brief that reflects how people actually work day to day.

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Ultimately, accurate and honest responses now prevent costly redesigns later and ensure the new Thames Water facility is tailored around the people who use it every day.

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Ultimately, accurate and honest responses now prevent costly redesigns later and ensure the new Thames Water facility is tailored around the people who use it every day.

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Ultimately, accurate and honest responses now prevent costly redesigns later and ensure the new Thames Water facility is tailored around the people who use it every day.

User Requirement Brief

The User Requirement Brief is created to bring together all the insights gathered during initial surveys and workshops and translate them into a clear, structured, and unified set of requirements for the new Thames Water facility. It captures the operational, technical, and regulatory needs identified through staff questionnaires, process reviews, compliance assessments, and stakeholder interviews, consolidating them into a document that guides all design and engineering decisions.

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Throughout its development, we refer back to the Thames Water Project Charter which defines the project’s purpose, scope, objectives, and key stakeholders. This ensures the emerging requirements remain aligned with Thames Water’s strategic intent. The URB defines exactly what each space must achieve, from laboratory workflows and segregation routes to logistics operations, welfare facilities, IT infrastructure, environmental conditions, and sustainability expectations.

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It also formalises future capacity requirements, equipment strategies, storage needs, and process flows that will shape how the new building functions day to day. Creating the URB at this stage ensures alignment across stakeholders and reduces risk, helping ensure the building’s infrastructure is designed around Thames Water’s real operational needs without costly redesign later in the project.

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Technical Feasibility

Technical feasibility is the stage that takes place immediately after the User Requirement Brief, using the URB as the blueprint to test whether the new Thames Water facility can technically deliver everything the users, processes, and compliance requirements demand. While the URB sets out what the building must achieve, technical feasibility confirms how it can be delivered within the physical, structural, mechanical, electrical, and environmental constraints of the proposed site.

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As we work through this stage, we continue to refer back to the Thames Water Project Charter to ensure technical solutions and engineering decisions remain aligned with the project’s defined purpose, scope, objectives, and stakeholder priorities. Engineering teams review room parameters, workflows, equipment loads, environmental conditions, and sustainability targets to validate whether the base build can support them without compromise.

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This includes structural assessments, MEP coordination, constructability reviews, and early environmental and energy performance checks. Risks associated with planning, integration, infrastructure, or building performance are identified early so they can be addressed before detailed design begins. Ultimately, technical feasibility ensures that the vision defined in the Project Charter and clarified through the URB is genuinely deliverable, safe, compliant, and future‑proof.