Anyone listening to Studio E’s evidence at the Grenfell public inquiry last week will have done so with mixed emotions. It seems clear that the practice was ill-equipped to take on a complex project of this nature, and the apparent lack of understanding of the legislative framework doesn’t paint the capability of the profession in a good light.

However, what has been most surprising to commentators from outside the building industry is the lack of clarity over who was responsible for ensuring compliance. The head-spinning web of design accountability is complex enough to those of us who do this stuff every day; to those unacquainted with design-and-build procurement it seems extraordinary that there is no one individual who is tasked with ensuring the proposals meet legislative requirements.

It’s a lesson young architects learn early in their career: never mark others’ information as “approved”, and at all costs avoid labelling anything as “as-built”. To do so is to accept liability for its content, which is impossible to provide when design-and-build prevents the levels of scrutiny and quality control that such phrases would warrant.

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