Heart of the matter: Why architects need a key role in the construction process – Page 2

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.

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.