The Grenfell Inquiry Did Not Cover the Most Important Issue: Design and Construction

“The terrible Grenfell Tower fire… may prove to be the latest and most tragic manifestation of the declining oversight that architects have been warning about for so long… Design and construction (has produced) a transfer of risk, with the balance of power shifting from the contract administrator (a role most often held by the architect) to the contractor.”

I wrote these words just months after the Grenfell Tower fire claimed 72 lives. This quote, and the article it comes from, were given as evidence by the Bereaved, Survivors and Residents (BSR) campaign group at the public inquiry, which published its long-awaited final Phase 2 report last week.

There’s a lot to take in over 1,700 pages, and it makes for a sobering read. It’s hard to feel proud to be part of an industry that allowed it to happen.

The inclusion of my article in evidence shows that the BSR group understood from the outset that a pervasive culture of neglect, ambiguity and obfuscation had enabled the Grenfell tragedy. Yet reviewing the final report, there seems to be little acknowledgement of this fact. While the public inquiry urgently diagnosed the symptoms, it ignored the disease. And this disease is designed and built.

In the 326 pages of Part 6 of the report, which covers the refurbishment of the tower itself, design and construction are mentioned just 19 times. The inquiry did not look at design and construction in detail because public procurement somehow fell outside the scope of the inquiry, under the terms of reference chosen by then-Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017.

Design and construction not only allows for the perpetuation of a culture of neglect of responsibility, but actually encourages it

But the inquiry was tasked with examining decisions about the “modification, renovation and management” of the tower and, in my view, it is an inescapable fact that poor procurement and quality are inextricably linked to the decisions that underpinned what went wrong. Design and construction not only allows a culture of neglect to be perpetuated; it encourages it.

Consider for a moment one striking scenario described in the findings, where Celotex RS5000 insulation was suddenly replaced with Kingspan K15 without the consent of anyone in a position of authority or supervision. The report describes how photographs “indicate that (Kingspan K15) was certainly used on the western side of the tower, but the exact locations where it was used are not known and cannot be determined given that much of the insulation was consumed in the fire.”

The report goes on to describe how no one from main contractor Rydon “consulted the TMO (tenant management organisation) or informed building control of the planned or actual changes”.

So at some point, a unilateral decision was made to replace one product with another, without prior approval or subsequent recording. As it happens, neither product was suitable for the application, so the result was the same. But what if they decided to replace a non-flammable product with a flammable product? And how many other changes were made that were not recorded?

More importantly, it raises serious questions about our knowledge of what else is out there. We are already all too aware of the thousands of buildings that have been clad in flammable cladding, but how many more are there that we assume are safe but are in fact wrapped in flammable materials, hidden behind harmless facades? And what other dangerous changes have been made to the details or materials of buildings that have not yet 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 unstable. Make no mistake: this is design and build in action.

The fact that Studio E apparently stamped the drawings “approved” is more a sign of their naivety than their negligence.

Design-build became the default form of contracting for large projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when clients realized they could pass on much of their risk to contractors who were willing to accept it. But all that happened was that contractors passed on that risk down their supply chains to subcontractors and consultants—those least able to bear it. Architects had their rates cut and their authority curtailed, and they were unable to understand their place in an increasingly convoluted web of responsibilities.

The inquiry found that “Rydon was responsible for checking the work carried out by (facade contractor) Harley and other subcontractors at Grenfell Tower” but did not acknowledge that it would be unreasonable for one company to be responsible for checking what was happening on site and for another consultant, in this case Studio E, to record that information.

The “as built” drawings, the inquiry said, “are part of the information that should be provided to the building owner as part of the health and safety file and are clearly an important record of the building for future occupants of the building”. But this is a source of endless dispute. Building contracts and CDM regulations require this information to be submitted at the end of each project, but it is the foolish architect who takes blind responsibility for the work of others. Instead, we usually opt for insurer-approved phasing: “final design” or “as instructed” or something similarly non-binding, but this is hardly reassuring to the facilities management team when they have to replace a broken window or a hidden pipe.

The fact that Studio E appears to have the drawings stamped “approved” says more about their naivety than their negligence. How can an architect in their right mind claim to know what has been installed in a building when others routinely change the specification without paying attention to the documentation specifying what needs to be done?

There are also limits to what can be expected of a reasonably competent architect, and we increasingly rely on the expertise of others to fill the gaps in our knowledge. The conductor of an orchestra knows how a symphony should sound, but may not know how to play every instrument. Design and construction not only disempower the architect, but also relegate us to the role of second fiddle, leaving the podium empty. And while we may all be looking at the same sheet music, even the most gifted musicians will struggle to create anything more than an unlistenable cacophony.

None of this is to absolve Studio E of responsibility. They were neither qualified nor capable of undertaking a project of this complexity, and they fully deserve the condemnation they received for their lack of professionalism and lack of regard for risk. That they accepted a fee of about half of what they should have been charging for a project of this size is a lesson to public sector clients everywhere. But every decent architect knows that familiar feeling of being undercut to a level where you know that the most basic services are impossible. There must surely come a point at which rock-bottom prices should be considered professional negligence: there is no magic formula for designing a building for half the cost; you simply end up making 50 per cent of the effort.

Fundamentally, the inquiry misunderstood the nature of the relationship between the various parties in modern contracting. It requires the architect to take responsibility for approving the work of others, as if there were some unwritten hierarchy that authorized him to instruct changes, re-order unsatisfactory work, and inform the client when something goes wrong. Yet we have stripped away that authority when we have allowed our meetings to be transferred to the builders.

Instead of serving the public, our duty now becomes to the interests of shareholders. After planning, Studio E was transferred to Rydon, all contractual links with the original client were severed and its tenants were terminated. Any temptation (or moral obligation) to report deviations from the employer’s requirements would have been a breach of contract. Why did the inquiry not question this?

The report states that “such a casual approach to contractual relationships is a recipe for disaster if events take an unexpected turn. Everyone involved in a complex project, regardless of their role, must clearly understand what they have agreed to do and what they are responsible for.”

That may be true, and we can introduce all the legislative reforms and corrective regulations we want. But until we fundamentally change the culture of construction in the UK, I don’t think we’ll learn any lessons from the Grenfell tragedy.

Russell Curtis is the founding director of RCKa and a founding member of the procurement reform group Project Compass CIC