GRENFELL TOWER INQUIRY: PHASE 2 REPORT – Summary of main findings

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry published the highly anticipated Phase 2 Report into the fire at Grenfell Tower last week. At its centre lies the significant human tragedy, as the fire in June 2017 claimed 72 lives, and injuring and impacting many others.

The voluminous Phase 2 Report examines detailed evidence on the circumstances surrounding the fire. In this summary article by AIA UK sponsor Beale & Co, the first in our “Digesting the Grenfell Report” series over the coming weeks, Sheena Sood, Joanna Lewis and Michael Salau summarise some of the Panel’s main conclusions and recommendations and contemplate the potential implications of these findings for the wider construction industry and the ambition to build a safer future.

Written by Sheena Sood, Joanna Lewis and Michael Salau

Vote in the 2024 USA Elections

As you know, 2024 is an election year in the USA.  Living in the UK does not affect your right to vote but may take a bit of planning.  If you are already registered to vote in your home state, you need to contact your local election board and ask for an absentee ballot or go to www.fvap.gov to obtain the standard form.  This must be done for each year that you plan to vote.  If you aren’t registered to vote, or you’re not sure, go to www.votefromabroad.org to register and request your ballot for 2024.  As we saw from the last presidential election, every vote counts.  It is important to exercise your right to vote!

Beale & Co News: Courts Enforce an Overriding Duty of Care Clause

An overriding duty of care clause (limiting duties to reasonable skill and care) has in recent years become more common and more desirable to negotiate into contracts involving design. In a key recent decision in which Beale & Company Solicitors LLP acted for AECOM, the successful party, the court upheld the effect and importance of an overriding duty of care clause. 

Written by Andrew Croft, Felicity Hird and Rhia Gould

AIA UK/RIBA 2023 Keynote Lecture - Thom Mayne

The AIA UK/RIBA Keynote Lecture featuring Thom Mayne of Morphosis was held on the 30th of January, having been rescheduled from last autumn.  The event was held at the RIBA headquarters in London to a full house plus an online audience.  Introductions were given by Dr Valerie Vaughan-Dick MBE, RIBA CEO; Muyiwa Oki, RIBA President, Emily Grandstaff-Rice, AIA 2023 National President (via video), and by Gregory Fonseca, AIA UK 2023 President.

Thom Mayne’s presentation was a spellbinding overview of his practice and thinking, using projects as talking points rather than exploring individual buildings in depth.  The talk was loosely configured around the themes of Early, Middle, and Current.  Early projects include several California projects such as the Crawford Residence (1990) and the Diamond Ranch High School (2001).  There was a heavy similarity to the theoretical work of Archigram, and it was no accident that Sir Peter Cook, one of the Archigram founders, was in the audience as Thom Mayne’s guest.

The Middle range of projects then demonstrated a geographically broad range of significant projects.  These included the Eugene Federal Courthouse (2006), Perot Museum (2012), Casablanca Tower (2019), Shenzhen Tower (2020) and many more.  There was an admirable design consistency between the early smaller projects and the much larger commercial projects.  Thom Mayne asserted that despite the seemingly complex geometries, the project budgets on their buildings were in a standard range.

The final portion of his presentation included several unbuilt competition projects such as Performing Art Centers for Rensselaer University and for Taipei, a Beijing Cultural Park, and Unicorn Island in China.

A lively Q&A session followed the presentation, after which attendees carried on discussions over drinks served in the Jarvis Hall foyer.

Written by Lester Korzilius, FAIA, RIBA

Beale & Co News: Market Trends in the Construction Industry in 2023 and how to Tackle Them in 2024

As the first two months of 2024 draws to a close, we feel it is an opportune time to reflect on some of the trends we saw in the construction industry in 2023 and hopefully look with some positivity at what is to come in 2024.

2023 was, in lots of ways, a difficult year for the construction industry. It was plagued by inflation, increased cost of materials, skilled labour shortages, a cost-of-living crisis and the ongoing effects of the Russo-Ukrainian war. It was not all doom and gloom though. We saw a real increase in the focus on climate change and decarbonisation in construction projects globally and in the use of digital technologies to improve efficiencies. We also saw the introduction of secondary legislation under the Building Safety Act which reflected a hugely important step towards a safer built environment.

This article will reflect on these important trends.

Market trends in the construction industry in 2023 and how to tackle them in 2024 | Beale & Co (beale-law.com)

Written by Andrew Croft & Ellie Eastwood

Lunchtime Webinar Report: Consultants – Is your duty of care under attack?

On the 3rd of May AIA UK members were invited to attend another of Beale and Company’s popular lunchtime legal webinars. The subject was how the use of new standard owner/consultant contracts place a more onerous duty of care requirement on architects than the traditional “reasonable skill and care” clauses of earlier contract versions. Entitled, “Is Your Duty of Care Under Attack?”, the webinar was presented by Will Buckley and Simi Sivapalan. Attendees received one continuing education learning unit for attending.

Traditional standard forms of contract, such as those provided by the RIBA and ACE make statements such as “exercise reasonable skill and care in conformity with the normal standards of the Architects’ profession” and “exercise reasonable skill, care and diligence in the performance of the Services”. Architects need to be aware that new versions of standard forms of contract from the ACE, FIDIC, NEC4, and the RIBA provide for an elevated duty of care! These contracts have moved beyond the use of “reasonable skill and care” with clauses such as those shown in the slides below.

The new contracts also have more onerous requirements regarding fitness for purpose, specification of deleterious materials, and use hard to define terminology such as “in the spirit of mutual trust and cooperation”. The webinar also addressed non standard contracts like those often provided by clients. These must be reviewed carefully as they often contain clauses that impose an even higher standard of care. Watch out for clauses such as those illustrated in the slides below.

The presenters discussed several recent legal cases to illustrate the challenges an elevated duty of care can present to design professionals. The important “take aways” from this fascinating webinar are:

• Where possible, try and limit standard of care to “reasonable skill and care”
• Include an overarching duty to exercise reasonable skill and care
  •  But remember, an obligation to use reasonable skill and care is not an overriding provision unless stated
  • Best practice to qualify strict obligations by “exercising reasonable skill and care” “subject to” wording may not always be sufficient
• Check for hidden obligations - strict and fitness for purpose obligations may not always be obvious Civil liability policy is much preferred to a negligence based one!

For further information on this subject, Will Buckby can be contacted at 020 7469 0411 and w.buckby@beale-law.com

Also, AIA UK members have access to the free Legal Helpline provided by Beale & Co at (0) 20 7469 0400 (please quote “AIA UK Helpline”).

By Michel Lischer FAIA