Project Budget: The Fight Between Dreams and Limitations

Project Budget. Two nasty words. At the beginning of a project, everything is sunshine and roses. The sky is the limit. The building will be built on time and on schedule. The building will have all the coolest features in the world. The building will be a design icon. The building will hover in midair. It will produce rainbows and sunshine and bunny rabbits and give you free coffee.

Then, reality hits. At some point, dollar signs get attached to all the items on the project wish list. Surprisingly, rainbows and sunshine and bunny rabbits aren’t cheap. Pretty soon, they will end up getting cut from the project. The project wish list shrinks and shrinks. At some point, even items that were once thought of as necessities may get the axe. For most jobs, this is generally the case. Budgets are very rarely unlimited and compromises must be made. If buildings had unlimited budgets, design would be very easy.