Capacity study
The envelope the rules allow and the plan that fills it — floor counts, areas and mix per scenario.
Practice / 02One of four movements
Programme, volume, yield and risk — before a line is committed. The unromantic homework that lets a tower be romantic later: what fits, what it earns, what can go wrong, and what the city will trade.
Scroll01 / The movementHow we work
What this is.
A tower is a business plan you can see from the motorway. Before we commit design effort, we test the plot the way a developer's board will: buildable envelope, net floor area per core layout, parking and logistics, construction cost per metre of height, and the planning risks that decide the timeline.
The result is a feasibility study that reads like an argument, not a spreadsheet dump — three or four honest scenarios with the numbers, the drawings and the risks side by side. Sometimes the answer is a taller building than the client dared to ask for. Sometimes it is: do not build here. Both answers are worth the fee.
02 / DeliverablesConcrete, on the table
What lands on the table.
Yield & cost model
Net-to-gross, lettable area and cost drivers per metre of height, built with your quantity surveyor.
Risk register
Wind, shadow, heritage, infrastructure and consent risks, each with an owner and a mitigation route.
Development strategy
Phasing, tenant mix and the public offer that earns the height — the story investors and aldermen both accept.
03 / QuestionsAsked first, answered straight
What clients ask first.
We already have a volume study from a broker. Why redo it?
Broker studies stack floors; they rarely stack cores, lifts and escape stairs. Ours do, which is why our net areas survive contact with the building regulations — and why lenders read them differently.
Can you work with our own cost consultant?
Preferably. We bring the height-specific drivers — core ratio, façade rate, wind measures, logistics — and price them with your QS so one model exists instead of two competing ones.
What if the study says the tower doesn't work?
Then you have bought the cheapest possible version of that news. About one study in five ends with our advice not to proceed as asked — usually with an alternative that does work.
04 / In the workWhere this movement carried
