Tag: Design & Build

The Grenfell inquiry missed the elephant in the room: design and build

‘The horrific fire at Grenfell Tower … may emerge as the latest, and most tragic, manifestation of decreasing oversight that architects have been warning about for so long … Design and build [produced] a transfer of risk, with the balance of power shifting from the contract administrator (a role most often fulfilled by the architect) to the builder.’

I wrote these words just a few months after the inferno at Grenfell Tower took 72 lives. This quote and the article it was taken from were submitted in evidence by the Bereaved, Survivors and Residents (BSR) group to the public inquiry, which last week published its long-awaited final phase 2 report.

There’s a lot to digest in the more than 1,700 pages, and they make for a sobering read. It’s difficult to feel proud of being part of an industry that allowed this to happen.

The inclusion of my article in the evidence demonstrates that the BSR group understood from early on that a pervading culture of negligence, ambiguity and obfuscation enabled the Grenfell tragedy to happen. Yet, working through the final report, it seems there’s little acknowledgement of this fact. While the public inquiry has diligently diagnosed the symptoms, it has ignored the disease. And that malady is design and build.

There are just 19 mentions of design and build in the 326 pages of Part 6 of the report, which covers the refurbishment of the tower itself. The inquiry did not look closely at design and build because industry procurement somehow fell outside the scope of its investigations as defined by the terms of reference chosen by then prime minister Theresa May in 2017.

But the inquiry was tasked with examining the decisions relating to the tower’s ‘modification, refurbishment and management’ and, to me, it’s an inescapable fact that poor procurement and the diminishment of quality are inextricably intertwined with the decisions at the heart of what went wrong. Design and build doesn’t just allow a culture of dereliction of responsibility to perpetuate; it positively encourages it.

Consider for a moment one striking scenario outlined in the findings, when the Celotex RS5000 insulation was suddenly switched for Kingspan K15 without approval by anyone in a position of authority or oversight. The report describes how photographs ‘indicate that [Kingspan K15] was certainly used on the west side of the tower, but the precise locations where it was used are not known and cannot be established given that much of the insulation was consumed in the fire.’

The report goes on to describe how nobody from main contractor Rydon ‘consulted the TMO [tenant management organisation] or informed building control that a substitution was going to be, or had in fact been, made’.

So, a unilateral decision was at some point made to switch one product for another, without this being approved prior, or recorded afterward. As it happens, neither product was suitable for use in this application so the outcome was the same. But what if they’d decided to replace a non-combustible product with an inflammable one? And how many other changes were made that weren’t recorded?

More importantly, this poses serious questions about our knowledge of what else is out there. We are already too aware of the thousands of buildings that have been covered in combustible cladding, but how many more are there that we assume are safe but have in fact been wrapped in flammable materials, hidden away behind innocuous façades? And what other perilous changes have been made to details or material selections in buildings that have yet to come to light? I know of at least one building where flammable cladding was removed to reveal a previously unknown problem with the concrete frame that rendered the entire building structurally unsound. Make no mistake: this is design and build in action.

Design and build became the default form of contracting for large projects in the late 90s and early 2000s when clients realised that they could offload much of their risk on to builders willing to accept it. Yet all that happened was contractors passed that risk down their supply chains; on to subcontractors and consultants – those least able to accommodate it. Architects had their fees slashed and their authority diminished, and were incapable of understanding their place within the increasingly entangled web of responsibilities.

The inquiry found that ‘Rydon was responsible for inspecting the work done by [façade contractor] Harley and other subcontractors at Grenfell Tower’, but failed to acknowledge that it is nonsensical for one company to be responsible for checking what’s happening on site, and a different consultant, Studio E in this case, to be recording this information.

‘As built’ drawings, according to the inquiry, ‘are part of the information that should be handed over to the building owner as part of the health and safety file and are clearly an important record of the construction for future users of the building’. Yet this is a source of never-ending dispute. Building contracts and CDM Regulations demand this information is produced at the conclusion of every project, but it is a foolish architect who takes blind responsibility for others’ work. Instead, we’ll usually settle on insurer-approved phasing: ‘final design’ or ‘as instructed’ or something similarly non-committal, but this hardly gives confidence to the facilities management team when they need to replace a broken window or a concealed pipe.

That Studio E appears to have stamped drawings ‘as approved’ speaks more to their naivety than their negligence. How can any architect in their right mind claim to know what’s been installed on a building when others routinely change specification without regard to the documentation setting out what needs to be done?

There are also limits to what a reasonably competent architect can be expected to understand, and we are increasingly reliant on the specialist expertise of others to fill the gaps in our knowledge. The conductor of an orchestra knows how a symphony should sound, yet she might not know how to play each and every instrument. Design and build not only deprives the architect of the baton, it demotes us to somewhere in the second violins, leaving the podium vacant. And while we might all be looking at the same sheets of music, even the most capable musicians will struggle to make much more than an unlistenable cacophony.

None of this is to let Studio E off the hook. It was neither qualified nor capable of taking on a project of this complexity, and fully deserved the condemnation it received for its lack of professionalism and cavalier attitude to risk. Its acceptance of a fee of around half what it should have charged for a project of this size is a lesson for public sector clients everywhere. But every decent architect out there will know the familiar feeling of being undercut to a level where we know it’s impossible to carry out the most basic of services. There must surely come a point when rock-bottom fees should be considered professionally negligent: there’s no miraculous way to design a building for half the cost; you just end up making 50 per cent of the effort.

Fundamentally, the inquiry has misunderstood the nature of the relationships between different parties within modern contracting. It demands that the architect take responsibility for approving the work of others, as if some unwritten hierarchy exists that empowers them to instruct changes, order the redoing of unsatisfactory work, and keep the client informed when things go awry. Yet we jettisoned these powers when we allowed our appointments to be transferred to builders.

Instead of serving society, our obligations are now to the interests of shareholders. Post-planning, Studio E was novated to Rydon, with any contractual bond with the original client, and its tenants severed. Any temptation (or moral obligation) to report derogations from the employer’s requirements would have constituted a breach of contract. Why did the inquiry not question this?

The report concludes that ‘such a casual approach to contractual relations is a recipe for disaster if events take an unexpected turn. All those involved in whatever capacity in a complex project need to understand clearly what they have agreed to do and what they are responsible for.’

This may be true, and we can introduce all of the legislative reforms and corrective regulations we like. But until we fundamentally transform the culture of construction in the UK, I can’t see that we’ll have learned very much from the Grenfell tragedy at all.

This article originally appeared in the Architects’ Journal on 13 September 2024.

Grenfell Inquiry has exposed design and build as our dirty little secret

The infamous game of exquisite corpse, invented by surrealists in the cafés of early 20th-century Paris, involved participants contributing to an evolving drawing, oblivious to their predecessors’ intent, save for a few short lines extending across a crease in the paper concealing the previous player’s work. With only limited information with which to extrapolate, each artist’s efforts unwittingly transformed churches into chickens; fish into fountains. The drawing revealed at the conclusion of the exercise could be surprising, disturbing – but never predictable.

As the second phase of the Grenfell public inquiry kicked off last week, the general public unwittingly glimpsed the construction industry’s own version of exquisite corpse. While shocking to many, the lack of oversight, ownership and liability that the inquiry has exposed is of little surprise to those of us who are immersed in the everyday realities of contemporary construction.

Design and build is construction’s dirty little secret; a seductive contractual brew which purports to offer clients certainty and comfort but amounts to little more than the delusive reconciliation of the cost/time/quality triumvirate. This commissioning and construction process has not only enabled the derogation of responsibility; it has positively encouraged it. The labyrinthine blame game now taking place within the inquiry is as predictable as it is devastating.

D&B is not, in and of itself, the problem. Rather it’s the inevitable manifestation of a rotten culture of risk-avoidance, which has demoted the pursuit of quality so far down the list of priorities that in some cases it ceases to factor at all. Yet it’s easy to understand why it remains so popular with clients. The opportunity to offload the risk of cost and programme overruns to a main contractor, thus saving face when things go awry, is too tempting to ignore, particularly within a public sector paralysed by fear of failure. In response, contractors – working to razor-thin margins and possibly bidding below cost in the hope they can recoup costs through subsequent ‘value engineering’ – simply bat the risk down the supply chain to the design team, suppliers, specialist subcontractors, or whoever else happens to be in the room at the time. Deniability is plausible when nobody really knows who is responsible.

The Hackitt review went some way to addressing this, but misidentified the elusive ‘golden thread’ as information, promoting the idea that a more robust transfer of data is the cure. But without singular oversight of the entire process – a sole point of responsibility – it’s no wonder what emerges is a poor facsimile of what was intended. No, the golden thread must be quality – the setting out, from beginning to end, of what a project must be like; then the presence of an ever-present and empowered agent with the authority and capability to intercede when things are not as they need to be.

The bereaved, survivors and relatives group, in its submission to phase two of the inquiry, put it thus: ‘Under Design and build there is a danger that the architects, once novated, are squeezed out of the process. They are, after all, now a cost burden for the design-and-build contractor. That certainly seems to have happened here. And there is no independent professional person to administer the contract and ensure that the design intent is fulfilled.’

It doesn’t have to be this way. Within the last quarter-century, a sea change has taken place elsewhere within the UK construction industry, with the number of site accidents and injuries plummeting. Changes in legislation have helped, but this has been principally due to a significant change in culture. The tragedy at Grenfell has made it apparent that our attitude to quality must now undergo a similarly profound transformation.

This article was first published in the Architects’ Journal, 28 February 2020.

The Pursuit of Quality

By and large, architecture is not a well-paid vocation—certainly considering the substantial debt and considerable time it takes to acquire the coveted Part III. One can only conclude from the abundance of young architects entering the profession that the reason they persevere with the innumerable late nights and modest reward is something other than financial remuneration. It is also apparent that, far from being aloof from the troubles of ordinary people, if not a majority, then certainly a significant number, embark on careers not for personal reward but to better serve a society which largely considers them to be detached from it. It is an irony, then—and undoubtedly a source of immense frustration—that rather than being considered as vital servants of society, architects are often viewed with suspicion, and even contempt.

On the morning of June 14th, 2017 the country awoke to the news that a horrific blaze had ripped through a west London tower block resulting in huge loss of life. That such a catastrophic event could take place in twenty-first century London was as bewildering as it was terrifying; that the building fabric, either in its design or its composition, was likely to have been a significant contributor to the loss of so many lives was a wake-up call for the whole industry, sending shockwaves through the entire profession. In hindsight, that such a tragedy had not happened sooner is something of a miracle.

400 miles north, and a year-and-a-half earlier, the early-morning collapse of a poorly-constructed masonry wall at an Edinburgh school could well have resulted in a similarly terrible tragedy were it not for the fact that it occurred just an hour prior to students arriving at the beginning of the day. Outside the specialist press this event attracted only limited news coverage, yet following a detailed investigation by Professor John Cole the circumstances that led to the building failure raised a fundamental concern about how the public sector commissions buildings—and one which has profound implications for the architectural profession.

Although the circumstances leading to each event were vastly different (one an existing residential tower latterly wrapped in lightweight rainscreen cladding, the other a new-build, low-rise masonry school), flaws in the processes through which these works were commissioned were demonstrably (in the case of the Edinburgh Schools) and likely—in the case of Grenfell Tower—a significant contributor to both failures.

Over the last quarter of a century the commissioning of public buildings has suffered immensely from the erosion of independent oversight within the construction process; historically a vital representative of the client’s interests, the role of Clerk of Works has all but vanished, whilst the architect—bound equally by law and duty to act equally on behalf of the client and society—relegated to the role of just another sub-contractor. With increasingly few construction firms now employing direct labour, modern contracting has become a complex service industry reliant upon a fragmented yet pliable supply chain, with “just-in-time” procurement and narrow margins, with clients—especially those in the public sector, wary of being seen to be profligate with taxpayers’ money—keen to delegate risk to whomever will accept it; regardless of the inevitable effect on quality. The architect, more often than not, having his or her appointment batted backwards and forwards between client and contractor, no longer benefits from independence and is increasingly distanced from the ultimate beneficiaries of their work. In such an arrangement the tension between legal duty to the client and the moral obligations to the ultimate occupants (which, in the case of public buildings, is frequently not the same group) can be challenging to reconcile. The prevailing use of Design & Build procurement and integrated contracting would seem to be at the heart of this dichotomy. The fact that some clients include so-called “whistleblowing clauses” within these contractual arrangements is an indication of the fundamental contradiction in this approach, although this seems to be an initiative favoured more by the private sector than public clients, and sadly little more than a sticking plaster for a greater malaise.

Independent oversight would demonstrably have prevented the defective works at the Edinburgh schools, and possibly have mitigated the circumstances that led to the rapid escalation of the fire at Grenfell. It’s certain that the architect’s isolation from the construction process, as demanded by the particular method of procurement selected in each case, could not have improved matters.

And so, for architects, an opportunity: the sudden realisation amongst public clients that systemic change is necessary to ensure that—rather than focusing solely on short-term budgets and the mitigation of illusory risks—procurement must instead be principally concerned with long-term outcomes: longevity, sustainability, wellbeing. And that, at the heart of this renewed focus, the architect is ideally placed to understand and accommodate these objectives; uniquely able to balance both the demands of the client with the wider needs of society—with skill, professionalism and compassion.

This article was published in the book “Defining Contemporary Professionalism: For Architects in Practice and Education” by Alun Jones and Rob Hyde, RIBA Publishing 2019.

Photo of Grenfell Tower by Guido van Nispen.

Heart of the matter: Why architects need a key role in the construction process

To find an architect lamenting the erosion of the profession’s role within the construction process may elicit from many little more than crocodile tears or, to others, smack of a futile act of self-preservation when faced with challenging financial targets, shrinking capital budgets and the avoidance of risk. But while architects’ railing at the demotion of quality in favour of ‘certainty’ is hardly new, events of the last year have suddenly thrust our concerns into the spotlight.

It is still far too early to apportion culpability for the horrific fire at Grenfell Tower in June, but it is possible that this may emerge as the latest, and most tragic, manifestation of decreasing oversight that architects have been warning about for so long. At the very least, there is clear evidence that a lack of professional, independent scrutiny has resulted directly in catastrophic failures elsewhere that could – had circumstances been only very slightly different – have resulted in tragedies of their own.

One example is the Edinburgh Schools fiasco, where Professor John Cole’s extensive inquiry into the collapse of a masonry wall at Oxgangs School in Edinburgh identified clear areas where a lack of oversight during the construction process phase had allowed poor workmanship to creep, unchecked, into the works.

Crucially, it became apparent that this was not an isolated incident, but one which was found to be endemic in the wider schools delivery programme, with a further four collapses directly attributed to workmanship not in accordance with the consultant’s designs. Professor Cole determined that independent scrutiny would likely have prevented such incidents occurring.

As well as the obvious risk to life, such events have had a dramatic financial and personal impact, with hugely expensive rectification work and extensive disruption to the education of students the new buildings were supposed to enhance.

There are innumerable, less spectacular, examples to be found throughout the country, many resulting in minor irritations but others which dramatically affect the enjoyment of buildings by those who inhabit them; in some cases, such as the Orchard Estate in east London, the result of a poor quality construction process and a lack of oversight has had a detrimental effect on residents’ quality of life.

It is a criticism often levelled at architects (and one not entirely without merit) that we have allowed ourselves to be pushed to the margins of the construction process, becoming adept at piloting complex schemes through an increasingly tortuous planning process, but superfluous when it comes to putting the thing together on site. One consequence of a decade of austerity is the presence of many young architects rising through the ranks of the profession for whom an understanding of construction techniques remains an abstract concept; lines on a drawing that have no analogue on a muddy building site.

While there’s some truth in this, in reality our marginalisation extends back far further than the recent financial crisis, with our traditional role at the heart of the construction process having diminished gradually as contractors, and other professionals, stepped into a void that we only had a small part in creating.

A shift away from what came to be known as ‘traditional’ contracting and the adoption of so-called ‘collaborative’ forms of contract, exemplified by design and build, were conceived as a way of reducing the adversarial nature of construction in the hope that by working together the entire team could focus on delivering projects to programme and budget.

It was expected that D&B would magically reconcile the elusive triumvirate of cost, quality and time. What really happened was a transfer of risk, with the balance of power shifting from the contract administrator (a role most often fulfilled by the architect) to the builder.

With the architect no longer acting on behalf of the client, and often taking their place as just another subbie within the builder’s extensive supply chain, the custody of quality was left up to those consultants, often from a cost background, remaining by the client’s side.

The benefit was obvious: a contract could be signed – often much sooner than would previously been possible – and the cost was fixed, with the risk of cost overruns now the responsibility of the contractor. It was up to the builder how to deliver the project within the sum agreed and any unexpected increases would be down them to resolve. This arrangement was so compelling it became the default choice for most public sector projects of any significance. The inevitable consequence was, however, that contractors would look to save money within the parameters laid down by the contract information in the desperate hope of widening excruciatingly narrow margins. Something had to give, and the sacrifice was quality.

There’s a perception in some sectors that our obsession with quality is simply a demonstration of our detachment from the realities of modern contracting. Why spend £50 on a tap when we could spend £500 and have it in gold? This is nonsense, of course. Our concern extends not only to the needs of the commissioning client but also those who will ultimately occupy those buildings we design; rarely are these the same, particularly in the public sphere.

We care about the contribution our buildings make to wider society; the effect on those who live and work around them, too. We understand that decisions made during the design stage can have a profound effect on longevity, enjoyment and quality of life. Quality extends not only to the thoughtfulness of a building’s design, the selection of materials and how they are put together, but to the enjoyment of those that live, love, work and sometimes die in it.

The impact our buildings have on the lives of the people that inhabit them can be profound and success cannot simply be assessed on the day the building is handed over, but only after months, years or even decades have passed. Architects understand that the construction process itself is only a brief excursion within a far greater journey. By retaking our position at the heart of the process, we can concentrate our efforts on arriving at the right destination.

This article was originally published in PBC Today and was quoted in the BSR (Bereaved, Survivors and Residents) Group’s submission of evidence to the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry.

After Grenfell

Passengers touching down at London City Airport are likely unaware that buried beneath the tarmac lie the brayed concrete remains of a 22-storey tower, the demolition of which signified a watershed moment in British housing. Erected hastily towards the end of the 1960s, Ronan Point concluded two decades of rapid housebuilding. At its peak, some 400,000 homes were completed annually, and in the fervour to replace the bomb-damaged slums of Victorian London it was perhaps inevitable there would be compromises in quality, with budgetary constraints eclipsing architectural ambitions and social concerns.

It was remarkable that on that spring morning of May 1968 so few people lost their lives. A gas explosion in a kitchen on the 18th floor blew out a load-bearing panel, which led to a collapse of one corner of the building, killing four. Although it stood for nearly 20 more years, Ronan Point was eventually pulled down in 1986, along with a number of other blocks built using the same construction methods, and deposited under the nearby airport runway.

This notorious event had two important outcomes, the effects of which we are still feeling today. The first was a comprehensive review of the Building Regulations — the statutory instrument that determines a building’s suitability for habitation — which were revised to outlaw the form of construction that enabled the ‘disproportionate collapse’ of the east London block. Secondly, it signalled an end to the British love affair with tower blocks and the modernist utopian dream. By the late 1970s we were building hardly any residential towers at all.

Fifty years on, the housing crisis of the early 21st century has reacquainted London with the concept of high-rise living. Inflating land prices have meant that developers wring every last square foot of space from tiny patches of brownfield land scattered across the city. Many of those towers that survived the purge of the 1970s and 80s, previously decried as failed social experiments, have been snapped up by canny developers and rebranded as desirable places to live: ‘luxury flats’ in convenient, accessible locations. Towers that remained in public ownership underwent less glamorous refurbishment through the Decent Homes programme, announced by the then deputy prime minister John Prescott at the turn of the new century. This ambitious initiative demanded that, within a decade, all social housing achieve minimum levels of quality. Often this work included the replacement of kitchens and bathrooms; in some cases upgrades to windows, thermal insulation and cladding to ‘spruce up’ ageing concrete.

Much of this work was carried out by a cabal of large construction companies who had become adept at offering councils a ‘one-stop shop’ of design and delivery, shielding the client from the risk of cost and programme overruns. Public clients, recoiling in paroxysms of fear at the prospect of capital projects running over budget, embraced this approach, taking comfort in the fact that fixed-price contracts would prevent costs unexpectedly spiralling out of control. As with the housebuilding boom of the late 1960s, the ambition of this new programme meant that design quality was sometimes of secondary importance to the need to deliver desperately needed new homes on time and within budget.

A consequence of this approach was the gradual excision of the architect from the construction process. The profession became seen as contributing little other than cost and complication, and its responsibility withered away to a point where it was seen as useful only for picking colours of cladding and helping to navigate tricky planning committees. Its technical expertise, pursuit of quality and consideration for those affected by the work became of secondary importance – an inconvenience that the budget and programme could ill afford. Rather than working directly for public clients, the design team began to work instead for main contractors, isolating architects yet further from the communities they were supposed to serve.

Just a few short weeks on from the Grenfell Tower catastrophe, it’s still too early to speculate as to why the fire spread with such terrifying rapidity. It may be that a particular configuration of standard building components contributed to the spread of flame across the outer skin of the building. Quite why in this case a small domestic blaze – of which there are many hundreds each year within tall residential buildings – led to so many deaths may take many months to determine.

It’s also impossible to say whether more meaningful involvement from the architect could have mitigated the tragic effect of the Grenfell Tower fire, but it is apparent from other recent cases that their exclusion has allowed bad practice to seep unchecked into the construction process. The recent Cole Report into problems with a raft of contractor-led schools in Edinburgh identified poor construction and inadequate supervision as the principal reason for a large number of serious building failures. Architects used to serve a nobler cause; now they have little choice but to serve those who pay the bills.

In his riposte to the Prince of Wales’s withering criticism of the profession in 1984, ex-RIBA president Maxwell Hutchinson claimed that the failure at Ronan Point was not because architects were involved in the construction. It was because they were not. Can it really be the case, half a century on, that we are back where we started?

This article was originally published in Icon magazine.