By Vicky Saunders, Managing Director, BTP Architects

The final report from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry marks a watershed moment in the construction and building safety industries.

This deeply tragic event, which claimed 72 lives in 2017, must serve as a critical turning point in how we approach building safety, accountability and responsibility. The sector is clearly frustrated with how long it’s taken for the inquiry’s conclusions to be made public, so clarity on what went wrong and how is long overdue.

The report lays bare a staggering chain of failures across government, private companies and regulatory bodies that contributed to the disaster.

The Grenfell fire wasn’t just a tragedy – it was a sign of deep-rooted failures within the systems we’d come to rely on to know our homes are safe.

Years of warnings were ignored, lives were unnecessarily lost and trust in building safety was shattered. The inquiry has revealed that multiple players all had opportunities to prevent this disaster but failed.

A lack of a single entity overseeing the safety of the entire project created a gap in responsibility, with devastating consequences. That can never happen again.

The inquiry reveals a “merry-go-round of buck-passing” with no clear delineation of who was responsible for ensuring that what was designed and specified was executed to the highest safety standards. As an architect with over 25 years of experience and someone deeply passionate about the quality of social homes in this country, this has been painful to read.

This failure in coordination and accountability is precisely what the building industry needs to address moving forward, and it’s where we, as architects, have a pivotal role to play.

The principal designer role

One of the most significant steps forward post-Grenfell has been the creation of the principal designer (PD) role, established in the Building Safety Act 2022. The PD is intended to be the single point of accountability for building safety, ensuring that safety is embedded in every aspect of the design, from initial conception through to completion.

Historically, architects have been involved in every stage of a project’s lifecycle, from design through to completion, liaising with engineers, contractors and building control. The PD role formalises this responsibility, making it clear that someone must be accountable for ensuring that building safety is maintained at every step.

This is something we’ve been actively calling for – the chance to not just take responsibility, but to lead the way in transforming how safety is integrated into the built environment.

In the case of Grenfell, the absence of a unified leadership role for safety allowed for critical oversights in fire safety, cladding installation and regulatory compliance. The report specifically highlights how different contractors failed to take responsibility for fire safety measures, with catastrophic results.

Had a PD been in place, tasked with ensuring safety at every stage of the project’s lifecycle, many of these fatal errors would likely have been avoided.

Accountability and transparency

The inquiry found that the regulatory system prior to Grenfell wasn’t just inadequate, but “seriously defective,” allowing for dangerous materials like the cladding used on the tower to pass safety tests without proper scrutiny.

It’s clear that these findings show a need for a complete regulatory overhaul, something the Building Safety Act seeks to address by proposing the appointment of a single regulator, accountable to a government minister.

This is, of course, a welcome step and an opportunity to make the changes so desperately needed. However, regulation alone won’t be enough. We need an industry-wide culture shift to one that prioritises safety, transparency and accountability over cost-cutting and profit margins.

Architects, as the primary visionaries behind any building project, have an essential role in shaping this new culture. We understand projects need to be delivered on time and on budget, but we also think with our hearts and understand that homes need to be built in the right way with the right materials, and to the right standards.

As experienced architects, we’re not just going to walk away from problems knowing someone else will need to deal with them further down the track.

Lessons learned

The Grenfell fire was a stark reminder that decisions at every stage of a project’s lifecycle have real-world impacts – and that when things go wrong, there are human consequences. As we move forward, we must learn from these mistakes, creating buildings which aren’t only functional and beautiful, but safe for all, with accountability and people at the heart of everything we do.

It’ll take time to digest the full contents of the report, but its key findings are already clear: a culture of denial, negligence and evasion contributed to the worst building fire in modern British history.

Now it’s up to the entire industry to ensure that the built environment is never again allowed to endanger lives so recklessly, and that we have the governance and culture in place to call out bad practice.

We owe it to the victims of Grenfell and their families to get this right.