Education and procurement both require fundamental reform: Grenfell demands it

‘Put simply, if you work in the construction industry and you do not feel the weight of responsibility you have for keeping people safe, you are in the wrong job.’ So said Thouria Istephan, Grenfell inquiry panel member, architect and registered health and safety practitioner. She’s right. The horror of the Grenfell Tower inferno should always be front and centre for those who work within the built environment, as a shocking reminder of what can go wrong and as a spur to do things better.

This month saw the conclusion of the second phase of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, led by former judge Martin Moore-Bick. Its report is unflinching, detailed and welcome. Along with several product manufacturers, the architect on the project, Studio E, came in for severe criticism, with the report saying the firm bore an ‘overriding’ and ‘very significant degree of responsibility’ for the disaster which killed 72 people. Its errors and oversights were symptomatic of a ‘widespread failure’ within the profession.

In the wake of the inquiry’s findings, two articles have resonated with our readers. One is Olly Wainwright’s thought-provoking Guardian article (‘Professional buck-passers’: why the excoriating Grenfell report was right to damn architects). In it, he writes about the problem of architectural education – ‘a five-year training in visual representation and rhetorical obfuscation, with precious little time spent on learning how to actually make a building’ – and how it needs a fundamental overhaul, including a ‘serious engagement’ with construction and contractual obligations.

The other is Russell Curtis’s sobering essay, ‘The Grenfell inquiry missed the elephant in the room: design and build’. ‘Design and build doesn’t just allow a culture of dereliction of responsibility to perpetuate; it positively encourages it,’ writes Curtis. When design and build became the default form of contracting for large projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he explains, ‘architects’ fees were slashed and their authority diminished, and they were incapable of understanding their place within the tangled web of responsibilities.’ Why have both pieces struck such a chord? Maybe it’s because both hold core, uncomfortable truths. The web is indeed tangled. Architectural education has obvious shortcomings. And it feeds into a construction and procurement system which seems set up to fail and for those failures to result in finger-pointing.

Education and procurement. Both are crucial to safe and successful architecture; both need reimagining. Both are human-made and can be changed. As Scott McAulay writes in his piece about how schools need to effectively educate students to meet the climate crisis: ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s an education system, an economic system, or a planning system … if something began in the human imagination, it’s inherently malleable.’

This month’s issue of the AJ is our annual Student Prize focus, expertly overseen by Fran Williams and Derin Fadina, and supported once more by Marley. In it you’ll see the future of the profession on display, and there is much inspiring and creative work to discover. The freedom to imagine is an important part of UK architectural education. It’s when a student’s commitment to a better future profession is forged – where they learn how to create and be curious – and to question.

Where their education can fall down is in the technical and the practical. This needs to change. Mentoring schemes are also now helping engage students in built environment issues at an earlier stage, as a grounding for a possible career in the industry. 

Students want to know more about real-world considerations. They want to seriously engage with the full range of architectural practice. Surely both the imaginative and the practical can co-exist and strengthen each other? Schools must play their part in ensuring a balance between the imaginative and the practical in architectural studies.

The September edition of the AJ is out now. Subscribers can read the digital edition here, or copies of the printed magazine can be purchased here. An AJ subscription is better value – click here to view our packages. Students enjoy 50% off subscriptions – find out more