The Grenfell Tower fire was the most devastating single event to occur in the UK’s built environment since World War 2. In its aftermath, various pledges and proposals have been put forward by the Government to try and redress failings identified across the industry. These include improvements in professional accountability for safety in the design and build of residential schemes.
The Hackitt Report found that accountability was far from clear in ‘higher risk’ residential schemes, when it came to overseeing specification. Also, the construction products testing and compliance regime, alongside the Building Regulations themselves, lacked robustness.
The Building Safety Act is a watershed bringing a clearer chain of responsibility, as well as tighter regulations, a Golden Thread of information, national construction products regulator, and a bigger role for architects in the form of the new Principal Designer.
We surveyed architects on their views of these fundamental changes to procurement, and how they saw the future of safety in projects. The findings included current challenges to accountability, the potential of the Building Safety Act to fix issues, ‘preserving the original design intent,’ and what’s needed from construction products testing, among many other crucial areas.