Who's in charge here?

Portrait: David Levene

We are not your enemy …

Dear Colin, your column ("Architects of our Downfall", 2 December 2005) was the latest in a regular series that's been pretty hostile to architects. Whatever your reasons, it's been apparent to me for many years that there is little to be gained by this kind of blame game. Indeed, the Latham and Egan reforms - which I know you support - were based on the principles of non-adversarial, integrated working.

I can't think of many architects who'd disagree with these ideals, but you mistakenly presume that the profession is dead-against a more integrated industry and that organisations such as CABE exist to protect architectural elitism. This is so wide of the mark that it might provoke architects to respond by attacking contractors for pushing up costs through claims, alienating consultants and so on. Perish the thought, but nobody is perfect.

The fact is that good design and reform of the industry are not mutually exclusive. Yes, architects have a responsibility to meet their delivery targets but we are also subject to the planning process and public scrutiny. We are the ones who get the criticism if we leave a legacy of second-rate designs, so CABE exists primarily to encourage good design for the benefit of the public, not to promote the work of "posh architects". The fact that CABE's terms of reference were set by the government illustrates that architects reflect our wider society. Oh dear, I didn't mean to sound pious: over to you, Colin.

Regards, Rab Bennetts, director, Bennetts Associates Architects

… You are, because you don't want to modernise

Dear Rab, you shouldn't take my comments on the worst examples of architectural practice as hostile - they're not and I'm certainly not in the blame game. It is the traditional system that is responsible for most of our problems. What concerns me is that the supervising consultant sectors appear to be less enthusiastic about replacing it than the constructors. My straightforward criticisms of many aspects of design, management and regulation are all based on my experience, and nearly always tempered by positive suggestions.

As you like to tell me, I'm only a small builder but at least that means I know some of the practical people who make up 85% of the industry, and understand the systems they operate in. It is still a small band of experienced and forward-thinking clients who are benefiting from integrated design and construction management. I'd be very surprised, even now, if more than 10% of the industry were complying with Sir John Egan's principles. There's lots of earnest intentions followed by pseudo-partnering.

Traditional competitive construction remains the most common form of procurement in the UK. You can tell from the financial results. Construction prices have increased annually by more than double the rate of inflation for the past 10 years. In the same period the average profit margin of contractors has fallen from 1.5% to 1.25% - more or less cost price. Egan made it clear that we need to integrate the design and management process to improve real construction's profitability. So far we have failed to convince 85% of our clients and their consultants. To do that we must offer the best designed value for money products and service. I agree with your view that good design and reforms of the industry are mutually dependant and achievable through real integration.

Regards, Colin Harding, chairman, George & Harding

Contractors cannot simply take over

Colin, I'm glad we agree that design is important. Nobody has yet improved on the Roman definition of quality: commodity (function), firmness (good construction) and delight (self-explanatory). When one of these is dominant, the results are less satisfactory, so Vitruvius' definition remains an appropriate manifesto for our industry. One example of this imbalance is the obsession with lowest cost, which is one of the main obstacles to reform.

We also agree that integrated working is worthwhile but this is not the same as contractors simply taking control over the design in the manner you were implying in your article: integration, not subjugation, is critical.

I go along with Egan on most things but I suspect he sees architects as, at best, stylists who do the nice bits or, at worst, as some kind of subcontractor. Certainly, at BAA design seems to have lost the importance it once had because of the dominance of process over product under his chairmanship. My view, then, is that if we are not to lose the plot over reform, architects must still discharge the role of design leader - not only for co-ordination purposes, but also because the architect and the client are just about the only people with an eye for the long-term vision - the product, not the process.

Your allegation that CABE exists to drive up costs does it a disservice; it would be more accurate to say that they try to prevent architecture being dumbed down by the process. We agree on the need for integration, Colin. Can you accept that the architect should lead the design process?

By the way, I don't think I have ever denigrated a contractor for being "a small builder" as Bennetts Associates is a small business too. Much of our work is with specialists like you who do the work, and we are as dependent on their good performance as they are on ours.

"The best results come from design-and-build where the principal contractor controls an integrated design and management process" Portrait: David Levene

But contractor-led design-and-build is the best system

Rab, I'm comfortable with your Roman definition of architectural quality. Can we assume therefore that you are comfortable with the Roman integrated design-build-construction management systems that went with it? That does somewhat contradict your view that architects should retain the role of design leader, co-ordinating the product. In reality, process and product cannot be separated.

The traditional design-led system forces everyone to focus on the process to protect their financial interests. The product, and therefore the customers, are pushed into second place.

The key issue that we have all been debating for 15 years is how our fragmented and therefore adversarial process affects the quality (design and specification) and reliability (cost, time and whole-life) of our product. My experience is that the best results come from design-and-build where the entity (usually the principal contractor) taking the financial responsibility for the project deals directly with the client and controls an integrated design and management process. This is not "subjugation" of design or designers as you put it, but transparent collaboration based on respect.

Your suggestion that "obsession with lowest cost is one of the key obstacles to reform" worries me because it reinforces the impression that architects do not want to be bothered with the vulgar money side of construction. It smacks of the "that is for the QS to sort out with the tradesmen" syndrome. You'd be surprised how prevalent that attitude is. Its most common form being the addition to risky or difficult details the magic words "contractor designed".

Tight cost control is an essential part of a commercial undertaking and architects working in modern integrated teams prove that we can construct good buildings within cost, time and quality targets.

If we have the courage to move away from architect-led systems, we can provide that level of service to all our industry's customers.

You know the price of everything, the value of nothing

Let's agree on one thing: design is not complete unless it meets delivery targets. Most architects would agree that buildings produced quickly and economically can be just as good as those with large budgets and long timescales.

Few would dispute that architecture at its best is a balance between function, delivery and quality, but this does not mean that architects don't care about cost! Those of us who rely on repeat business would not survive if this were true. The key issue is not initial cost but overall value, which includes things such as

whole-life costs, user satisfaction and the impact on the community. It is this broad appreciation of value that seems to me to be absent from your thinking about the role of architects.

As for who should lead the design process, my own experience is that, with the possible exception of PFI, even the most capable organisations cannot be expected to appreciate what is involved in design prior to the contract stage, such is the dominance of the commercial imperative. As a result it's hard to imagine that anyone but the architect can lead design in the early stages.

I know that you have little time for CABE and the RIBA but they are of course different organisations with different purposes. While I can recommend that you attend a CABE design review to see the kind of grilling some prominent architects receive, you should try the RIBA for its exhibitions, the lectures or the library, where you might discover what it is that turns on architects. Oh, and their clients, too.

Okay, let's talk about architecture …

You are correct to say that I've little time for CABE. There is nothing personal in this. Rather, it is because I see CABE as yet another of the Blair government's unnecessary and ineffective regulators. Design is a matter of personal opinion and is driven by a free market in thought and design.

It is even more difficult if architects are the regulators because their judgment is questionable. Channel 4's Demolition programme at the end of last year condemned a dozen or so buildings, mainly from the 1960s and 1970s. As a student in the 1960s, I recall how the architectural establishment was promoting these stark designs as the bees' knees - and we all agreed with them, at the time.

In the 1980s, Alice Coleman did some research on buildings that had won design awards and then went wrong. The most embarrassing was the great Sir Basil Spence's Hutchinson Town flats in Glasgow, demolished less than a decade after they were erected. Norman Foster and the late James Stirling have also lost blocks of flats to demolition. How many of our current trendsetters will be similarly vilified in the 2040s? Or even in 25 years when the mastics have failed, the single-ply roofs have perished, CABE's existence has been forgotten and our lifestyles have completely changed.

The RIBA is a different case, however, and it is not a question of me having little or lots of time for the venerable institution. I fundamentally disagree with just one of their otherwise uncontroversial policies: the continued promotion of design-led construction management.

Just because you are a highly skilled and successful architect Rab, it doesn't give you and your peers a monopoly of appreciating design quality. You will obviously be surprised how many professional construction managers are passionate about architecture. That is why we get so frustrated by the fragmentation of the old system which distances us from the design process. All we want is, ever so politely, to introduce a little buildability and common sense and occasionally enquire whether the client can really afford this detail or material or that untried system. It is the isolation of design and, hence, cost control from the rest of the process that is the root cause of the inefficiencies, wasted costs and yes, bad design that keep dragging us back to this kind of debate. Whether it is the Scottish parliament, Bath Spa, Wembley stadium or the thousands of projects not in the spotlight, it is design-led procurement and construction management that lets us down.

"You seem to be frustrated by not having the power to dictate everything that determines the shape and form of buildings" Portrait: David Levene

Well how about this for a compromise?

First, architects have to answer to many people other than their peers and their clients - the elected representatives of local council planning committees and bodies like CABE appointed by the nationally elected government, to name but two.

Second, I think we have identified common ground. Architects in the lead initially, with integrated design and construction processes before too long, sounds like design-and-build with a novated design team. This is something I favour, but it depends upon mutual trust and respect rather than the words of a particular form of contract. I think we agree. Peace in our time?

No deal

Good try, but you are mixing and matching separate arguments. Let's leave the CABE issue where it is. We certainly don't want to get involved in how democratically the present government has been behaving.

We don't seem to be getting anywhere with your second point. My phrase was "architects to carry out the design process from the start" not to lead it, nor to novate a fait accompli design to the contractors. Novation does not work for that reason and I have the scars to prove it. The complete integrated team must be in place from the start, with the architect responsible for working up the designs in full collaboration with the rest of the team. I thought that was what was agreed in the days of the Movement for Innovation.

You just want a dictatorship of the contractors …

Sorry, Colin, I thought that we were getting somewhere, but clearly not. The M4I did indeed explore a more integrated industry but this was not at the expense of design leadership. I don't recall that ever being discussed in those terms when I was on its board.

You seem to be frustrated by not having the power to dictate everything that determines the shape and form of buildings, but I have been seeking to persuade you that architects have much to offer that contractors simply don't. It would take a huge shift in our cultural life before the public would feel able to accept design that is dictated, in effect, by commercial attitudes. It is precisely the imbalance between commercial or delivery issues and good architecture that is giving the PFI projects a bad name. I come back to my original contention: integration is fine, subjugation is not.

… and you want to perpetuate the ancien regime

I think this is where we came in. It is not professional constructors who are trying to dictate and subjugate. We are the ones who want to collaborate and integrate. It is you architects who want to continue your traditional dictatorial powers over the design of our buildings, thereby separating the responsibility for design from its cost and so subjugate contractors.

Design has always been restrained by commercial considerations. Okay, there has been the odd eccentric who has thrown money at construction, but inconvenient as it may be for dictatorial designers, most of our clients have finite funds at their disposal and are perfectly entitled to expect us to control them reasonably.

Subjugation of any party in a working group is bad management, and subjugation of contractors who take the overall financial risk of a project while being distanced from the design of their own product has proved to be suicidal to their and the industry's performance. No wonder everyone is worried about the Olympics.

Sir Christopher Wren is dead

The problem is that today's contractors can't be expected to act in anyone's interests other than their own. The fact is that the days of the master builder are gone. Sir Christopher Wren was a master-builder, driven by design much like today's architects, but he delivered his great works by orchestrating the process, leaving scope for specialists (such as the masons) to express themselves. The difference between Wren's drawings of the windows at St Paul's and the installation is salutary. Incidentally, Wren was pursuing his own selfish agenda - classical, not gothic as the client wanted - and was fired for his pains.

If there is no reason why contractors should not act in their own self-interest, don't you think the public should be protected from their commercial excesses? Architects can do this to some extent, although they are clearly answerable to their clients as well as to the public, so a layer of safety nets in the form of planning controls, CABE and local pressure groups has emerged to make sure that the public interest is safeguarded. It is naïve to believe that contractors can lead this process in the 21st century.

I know that some architects have a poor understanding of commercial reality but most take their budget responsibilities seriously. You've obviously had some bad experiences but, if I can accept that the training of architects needs to be sharpened up, I think you must accept that contractors need to embrace cultural values and social responsibility before they can direct the design and construction process. I would like nothing more than to see integration to the point where it doesn't matter if a project is led by a contractor or a designer but, unless they are compelled to do so by CABE or the local planners, I cannot see why a contractor would act as the patron when something more profitable would suffice.

Far from being a design-dictatorship, architecture remains a balancing act between commodity, firmness and delight, and rightly so. I guess that's where we came in.