‘Its failures had catastrophic consequences’ - what the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report said about architects Studio E

The report places the architects near the top of the tree of blame. But what did it say in detail about where they went wrong?

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Who are Studio E? 

Studio E was the architectural firm which worked on the Grenfell Tower refurbishment and took on the role of lead consultant and lead designer.

The latter role made it responsible for  responsible for “co-ordinating the design of all constructional elements… and for determining materials, elements and components” - which makes it a critical player in the story of how Grenfell ended up being covered in such dangerous materials. 

‘A little green’ - Studio E’s initial appointment

Studio E was working on the construction of a school next door to Grenfell Tower, and was appointed to work on the refurbishment job on the tower as well, despite having no experience of overcladding a residential high rise. 

The report said that RBKC (the council) placed pressure on KCTMO (who were managing the job) to appoint the same team for both schemes. No steps were taken to check if Studio E had relevant experience, with a manager at KCTMO “accepting that that was an obvious question and could not explain why no one had asked it”.

The appointment involved “no element of competitive procurement whatsoever” because fees were structured to deliberately avoid exceeding the limit.

“By failing for purely financial reasons to follow the proper procurement process, the TMO deprived itself of the opportunity to appoint a firm of architects with relevant skills, knowledge and experience,” the report said.

The panel did not criticise Studio E for taking the job. “Architects can be expected to take on work outside their traditional areas of specialism from time to time,” it said.

But it did say that once it accepted it, it should have either trained its team or hired in experienced staff to ensure it could do it properly. Internally, the lead architect Bruce Sounes noted that the firm was “a little green on process and technicality” and proposed “some rapid CDP” [sic]. But this ultimately consisted of some short discussions with the engineering consultant, internet research and nothing more.

“It was necessary for Studio E to engage someone who could bring to the firm specific experience of overcladding a high-rise residential building to ensure that it could provide the necessary services with appropriate skill and care,” the panel said.

While both Studio E and KCTMO accept that they agreed legally to a contract under standard RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) terms, no formal terms of appointment were ever signed.

The report said this “demonstrates a casual approach to the establishment of contractual relations… which appears to be widespread in the construction industry”. The panel said a “more rigorous and careful” approach would substantially reduce the risk of disagreement about where responsibilities lie.

‘Those were serious errors that had direct and catastrophic consequence’ - the failure to check the rules and requirements

Despite taking responsibility for a job in an area which he was unfamiliar, Mr Sounes “did not take any steps to familiarise himself” with the relevant rules and regulations. “That was a basic error,” the report said. “He therefore gave no thought to the manner in which compliance was to be ensured.”

“In our view, in failing to review Approved Document B [the relevant guidance] and to consider carefully its significance for the project Mr Sounes fell seriously below the standard to be expected of a reasonably competent architect,” the panel said. 

Because others on the job ultimately appeared satisfied with the use of the cheap aluminium composite material cladding, and the combustible insulation which sat behind it, Mr Sounes assumed they were ok without checking.

“Those were serious errors that had direct and catastrophic consequences,” the report said. “Any reasonably competent architect should have known, or at any rate should have taken the trouble to discover, that… [official government guidance] Approved Document B contained a warning against the use of combustible materials in external walls.”

‘It was even more inappropriate to accept it uncritically’ - the choice of the insulation

The purpose of overcladding Grenfell Tower, the report concluded, was always about aesthetics and not insulation. 

While one councillor had visited a flat in the tower and felt it was draughty, no independent analysis of the thermal efficiency of Grenfell was ever undertaken. Instead, the main focus was to make the tower look nicer - and avoid it appearing as a “poor cousin” to the school being developed next door. 

“We are satisfied that the initial motive for cladding Grenfell Tower was to improve its visual appearance,” the panel wrote. 

“The desire to improve the thermal efficiency of the building was a later consideration, RBKC did not have any independent evidence that the thermal efficiency of Grenfell Tower was so poor that it needed overcladding.”

Nonetheless, Mr Sounes and consultants Max Fordham decided to achieve a very high standard of insulating value for the tower - double what would normally be required for a refurbishment project. The report said this was due to encouragement in official planning documents and “a widespread recognition in the industry of the importance of improving the fabric of buildings”. 

But this target, based on loose calculations by Mr Sounes, drove the team away from non-combustible insulation and towards rigid plastic foam boards which were combustible. M&E consultants Max Fordham then provided a data sheet for a Celotex insulation product to help Mr Sounes with his calculations. But he took this as advice that it could be used, which the report called “inappropriate”.

“It was even more inappropriate to accept it uncritically without taking steps to understand the nature of the product and satisfying himself of its suitability. That was a serious error on the part of Mr Sounes,” the report said. 

‘Relying on what others have done in the past is not good enough’ - the choice of cladding panels

Mr Sounes and Studio E had initially wanted to use honeycomb zinc cladding panels for Grenfell Tower. This was due to aesthetics, but as it happened, they were also non-combustible. 

However, as is now widely known, they were pushed towards the highly combustible Reynobond ACM PE for cost reasons, with sub-contractor Harley Facades making a strong case for it to be used. 

It was Studio E, though, who placed it as one of the options in the specification for the job. 

In making this decision, Mr Sounes “did not address his mind to fire performance”.

The specification document was ultimately pulled together by more junior architects - but Mr Sounes did nothing to supervise their work or ensure the materials they chose were safe and compliant, and did nothing to ensure that the materials chosen would result in compliance with the regulations

“That was a fundamental failing on the part of Studio E which had significant consequences,” the report said. Mr Sounes said he hoped any issues would have been raised by building control when it reviewed the plans. 

“Mr Sounes was wrong in his understanding,” the report said. “Under its contract with the TMO, it was Studio E’s responsibility to ensure that the materials included in the NBS Specification complied with the Building Regulations.”

“The fact is that Mr Sounes simply assumed that all the cladding panels included in the NBS Specification were suitable for the refurbishment because they had been used on other projects,” the report said. “Relying on what others have done in the past is not good enough when the practice in question affects people’s safety, is inconsistent with industry guidance and, most importantly, does not withstand rational scrutiny.”

‘In failing to do so Studio E fell seriously below the standard of a reasonably competent architect’ - the BBA certificate

In choosing the Reynobond PE ACM, Studio E and others on the job were provided with a certificate from the British Board of Agrement (BBA) by Arconic’s salesperson, which appeared to imply the panels had a Class 0 rating. 

This would have meant the cladding panels met the terms of Approved Document B. This was due to a long, sustained failure by government officials and ministers to remove this dangerous standard from the guidance. 

But if you read the certificate in detail, it would have become clear that it actually applied to a panel of a different colour and finish, and that an ‘FR’ (fire retardant) version of the panel was available, and was the version which had actually been tested to Class 0 standards.

Initially, inquiry expert Paul Hyett said that he “did not consider that an architect could be criticised for taking the statement on the front of the [BBA] certificate at face value”.

But when questioned, Mr Hyett’s view expanded to say that an architect should have read the full document and learned that the panels being specified for Grenfell were different and that the FR panel was available.

The view of the panel was that once the decision had been made to change to ACM, Studio E should have been rigorous in checking its suitability. The firm “ought to have conducted an urgent investigation into its characteristics in order to satisfy itself that the external wall as a whole would comply with the requirements of the Building Regulations”, the report said.

“We consider that in failing to do so Studio E fell seriously below the standard of a reasonably competent architect,” it added. 

It was clear that BBA documents need to be examined by architects. “We were troubled by Mr Sounes’ practice of not reading the whole of the BBA certificate for any product he was planning to recommend for a project. His failure to do so fell very far below the standard of a reasonably competent architect,” it said.

The report was also critical of Studio E, for failing to notice that the cavity barrier design produced by sub-contractor Harley Facades would allow fire to move freely up the sides of the windows. 

Studio E had not produced a clear strategy for fire barriers before appointing Harley, leaving it to the subcontractor to work out and then rubber-stamping their designs.

“Studio E’s failure adequately to review Harley’s drawings flowed from a lack of technical knowledge and experience, exacerbated by the lack of a basic scheme design,” the report said.

‘Studio E therefore bears a very significant degree of responsibility for the disaster’

The result of all this is that the report has come down very heavily on the architects, and Mr Sounes in particular. 

“Its failures relating to the design of the external wall and the selection of materials to be used in its construction had catastrophic consequences. Studio E therefore bears a very significant degree of responsibility for the disaster,” the report says.

The report does not provide anything as crude as an ordered list of those most responsible, so there is an element of interpretation of language in deciding who it thinks is most to blame.

But the phrase “very significant degree of responsibility” is not used for anyone else in the construction job, and would appear to put the firm at or near the top of the tree in the panel’s eyes. 

My thoughts on this are mixed. On the one hand, I can understand it. Ultimately, this was a fire which resulted from the choice and specification of cladding products. So it is hard to argue with the party responsible for choosing and specifying the products being placed in the spotlight, especially when it was done with such little thought for the consequences and the applicable rules.

But there are some small ways in which I feel there is a danger of them becoming a scapegoat. It is reasonable to say that Mr Sounes should have read the whole BBA document and asked further questions.

But if he had, would we have just ended up with an ACM with a different coloured core, but just as much flammability? If so, would that have made any real difference on the night of the fire? Was it reasonable to think that any non-fire specialist would know that the colour had any baring on the fire performance anyway?

And so, if we do at least give Studio E the fact that it relied on the BBA certificate to an extent, then should the real blame start to move up the chain - to Arconic, to the BBA and to government itself. 

My view, reading the report, is that the architects have to be blamed for the failure to read and understand the regulations. That was, as the report says, “cavalier” and careless. It is behaviour for which there must be consequences. 

But those who I personally blame a little more are those who had real knowledge of the risks of ACM cladding and didn’t act. And for that, you have government officials (who tested it in 2001) and the company that made it (who tested it several times from 2005 onwards). Once it was out there in the market with apparent backing from guidance, it was going to end up on buildings. Studio E did fail, and should be held to account for that. But we were getting a big ACM fire at some point so long as we had Class 0 and companies willing to exploit that.

For further reading on the architects and Mr Sounes, I’d recommend this perfectly weighted piece from Nathaniel Barker of Dezeen (and my former colleague at Inside Housing).

A brief aside on car park fires

Last week, the report into the huge blaze at Luton Airport carpark in October 2023 was released. You can read it here. 

A couple of reflections from me. One is that the fire started in a big red Range Rover, not an electric vehicle as previously misreported. 

A reminder, then, that while EVs are likely to have a different fire risk profile to traditional vehicles, internal combustibion engines have always come with a fire risk too (clue’s in the name with that one). 

A second observation is that there has been long been evidence for sprinkler protection at car parks to stop fires like this - where it jumps from car to car and becomes impossible to extinguish. 

This report agrees with that.

“Evidence derived from global research… demonstrates the effectiveness of sprinklers in controlling fires in car parks. It shows that the incidence of fatalities and injuries is zero, and the property loss is about 95% lower than that of an uncontrolled fire,” it says.

Some of those who look at Luton might view this as unnecessary. Building regulations in the UK are about life protection not property protection. Losing a lot of insured vehicles and an outdoor structure, with no loss of life or damage to other property might not be seen as a bad result under those terms. 

But we need to think a bit more broadly. What really scares me is the thought of underground car parks in the residential sector. Imagine this fire starting in the base of a timber framed or modular building in the middle of the night with the potential for rapid spread through cavities in the structure. As a minimum residential car parks should be sprinklered. 

But even more generally, these fires pose a big risk to firefighters, particularly since they are fierce enough to cause structural collapse. In a much more built up area, a collapsing multi-storey carpark, or spread from one building to another through pouring fuel or debris could have much more severe consequences.

“The fire in Terminal Car Park 2 is not the first major fire in a multi-storey car park and it is unlikely to be the last,” the report says. 

“The fire spread quickly to several vehicles and a combination of the wind spreading the fire through the open-sided car park, the impact of running fuel fires, and the early onset of signs of structural collapse, all prevented internal offensive firefighting from continuing and contributed to the significant scale of the fire and subsequent financial loss. 

“Given the significant structural collapse that occurred, the early recognition of the risk of collapse and the subsequent tactical withdrawal of firefighters certainly helped prevent any serious injury or loss of life.”

Let’s hope we act in time to prevent this outcome.

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