When architects no longer coordinate designs and builders no longer accept responsibility for the building, how do you make sure a building is weatherproof?
From the outset of my career as an architect, I found it regarded
as a normal and essential part of the architect’s role to coordinate the design
team and integrate architectural, engineering and specialist designs into a
working whole. More recently, as a
forensic architect, I find troubled projects where the project architect’s role
is diminished, leaving no member of the design team with overall responsibility
to coordinate the team and check the compatibility of each specialists’
contribution to the design. This was
brought out recently in a design and build project which leaks. The general contractor blamed separately: the
architect, the brick laying sub-contractor and the curtain walling
sub-contractor for the failure.