Chapter SixRisk and the Regulationof the Design Process

The greatest risk management tool is reaching understanding and clear commu-

nication between the architect, owner and contractor . . .

(US Green Building Council, undated)

6.1 Introduction

The design and construction of the built environment has always been afocal point of debate in relation to the risks that poorly designedbuildings can pose to human health, habitation, and wellbeing. Fromthe early building codes of Mesopotamia in the first century BC, to theemergence of modern systems of building control in the 19th century,regulating the risks associated with the building industry has been afeatureof thedesign and constructionprocess. As outlined in chapter 2,such risks range from the threat of fire due to poorly installed electricwiring to the possibility of building collapse in areas prone to seismicactivity. For instance, a major earthquake in central China, in May 2008,led to an estimated5.36million buildings collapsing, a further 21millionbeing damaged, and estimated deaths that exceeded 70,000 people(United States Geological Survey, 2008). The event was attributed, inpart, to the inadequacy of the region’s building codes and constructionpractices and, in particular, to the absence of a uniform code for quake-resistant public buildings, the use of cheap materials, and the lack ofenforcement of the building regulations (Chan, 2008, Lee, 2008a).

These observations signify the importance attributed to the mitiga-tion of risk through the development and use of rules and regulationsrelating to building form and performance. In England and Wales, thebuilding regulations continue to expand in a context whereby thegeneration of new knowledge about materials and construction gen-erates demand for what Rothstein et al. (2006: 94) refer to as ‘control ofpreviously unidentified or unmeasured risks’. For instance, Part P of the

Architectural Design and Regulation. Rob Imrie and Emma Street.© 2011 Rob Imrie and Emma Street. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-17966-9

Building Regulations, introduced in 2005, requires electrical work inhomes and gardens to be carried out by ‘competent persons’ ratherthan, as was previously the case, any person irrespective of theirknowledge of the interrelationships between building materials andelectric current. Likewise, in the USA, White and Dietenberger (2001)note that the increasing use of flammable wood–plastic composites inhousing construction, for features such as decking and roofing, is likelyto lead to new building codes to regulate against fire risk, especially inareas of wild fires, such as Southern California.

Both examples are part of a broadcloth of regulatory responses toheightened awareness of health and safety issues in society, and amanifestation of what Power (2004: 10) refers to as the ‘risk manage-ment of everything’. For Power, modern society is characterised by theemergence of a ‘duality of risk’ in which there is, on the one hand, anincrease in the quantity of regulations in relation to the management ofsocietal risks, such as building failure, and, on the other hand, thedevelopment of risk analysis to manage potential threats to organisa-tions, relating to possible malpractice, misconduct, error, or omission.While the former relates to issues of danger and threat, and maynecessitate the application of legal regulations, the latter is concernedwith organisational accountability and legitimacy. Here, there is someonus on professionals to show how they will respond to risk, or, asPower (2007) suggests, what is paramount is less the assessment andanalysis of risk than its governance (also see O’Malley, 2004, 2005).

These broader tendencies are manifest in the built environmentprofessions (for example, RIBA, 2005). There is a plethora of regulationsstemming from external sources relating to building form and perfor-mance, and, seemingly, much emphasis on risk identification and itsmanagement, particularly in relation to the processes underpinning thedevelopment and delivery of building projects. In the past 15 years,there has been an expansion in the number of building regulations, anda much greater emphasis on health and safety procedures, charac-terised by the UK Health and Safety Executive, in 1995, introducing theConstruction and Design Management (CDM) regulations to identifyhazards, reduce risk, save lives, and eliminate injury.11 An extension toCDM regulations, in April 2007, requires architects to consider thesafety of buildings’ end users and to make clients responsible forappointing a dedicated CDM coordinator, part of a trend that, forO’Malley (2004), signifies organisations becoming much more mana-gerial and regulatory.

An implication of the introductionofCDMandother regulations is theonus placed on professionals, such as architects, to manage and reducerisk in the design and construction process, and the development ofadministrativeandmanagerialsystems, including(re)deploymentofstafftime and financial resource, to ensure that risk minimisation targets are

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attained and adherence to regulations is assured. For someobservers, thismeans that the traditional focus of architects, the aesthetic of buildingdesign, is being supplanted by prosaic and pragmatic tasks relating to thedevelopment, delivery, and implementation of building projects (Habra-ken, 2005, RIBA, 2005). One architect, Thomas Colbert (2007), has asked,‘what is left if you take away the aesthetics from architecture?’ His reply:‘You’re left with only function, only utilitarianism. You’re left with extremereduction.’ For others, the emerging managerial environment of architec-ture is no less stark, and may well be one whereby ‘there is no aestheticrequirement and no need for imaginative solutions’ (Hughes, 2003: 2).

While such pronouncements seem to exaggerate the extent ofchange, they point towards what some see as a diminution of theaesthetic craft of architects, and its supplanting by, and entanglementwith, issues of risk and regulation, relating to anything from the dimen-sions of exit routes from buildings, to the legal and contractual obliga-tions of different project professionals (RIBA, 2005). Such issues, wecontend, are neither ephemeral nor unimportant in architecture, but, asdiscussed in chapter 1, reflect what Sarfatti-Larson (1993: 23) describesas the heteronomous conditions of architecture and the processes thatshape theproductionof thebuilt environment (also see Imrie, 2007). Thisactivity constitutes design and building as ‘risky objects’, and regulationas part of a process in the minimisation and management of risk inrelation to the different activities of professionals and organisations. Inthis view, the practices of architects are highly implicated in, andconstitutive of, the construction of risk objects, and their ameliorationby recourse to systems of organisational governance.

In the chapter, we develop insights by analysts of risk and regulationand relate these to an understanding of the design and construction ofthe built environment (Dean, 1999, Fischoff et al., 1984,O’Malley, 2004,2005, Power, 2004, 2007, Rose and Miller, 1992). We advance theargument that the risky, regulatory, and rule-based nature of architec-ture is a significant, if under-explored, dimension of the processes ofproduction of the built environment. Our analytical focus on issues ofrisk and its regulation contrasts with traditional foci of scholarly studiesof architecture, on the decorative and the aesthetic content of build-ings. Rather, our concern is the conjoined nature of aesthetics and thepragmatics of project organisation, or a focus on the socio-material andpolitical relations underpinning the design and construction of build-ings. This includes the different ways in which the actions of architectsare, in part, constituted by, and constitutive of, rules and regulationsabout risk and buildings, including those that relate to building form, itsperformance, and the contractual, legal, and operational conditionsthat shape its design and construction.

We divide the chapter into two main parts. First, we outline how thework of architects is entwined with issues of risk, and we suggest that a

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new focus for the understanding of architects’ practices ought to be theconsideration of the interrelationships between design, risky objects,and their regulation. Second, we discuss findings from our survey andinterviews with architects. We describe and evaluate their understand-ing of, and responses to, what they perceive to be increased exposureto risk (and its regulation) in the design process. This exposure has twokey dimensions. The first is related to architects operating in increas-ingly complex organisational networks, characterised by decentredand dispersed forms. These, we suggest, have the potential to open upa range of risks relating to aproject’s organisation, and its developmentand delivery. The second is a consequential deployment of calculativerationalities of risk management, or methods, mechanisms, and tech-nologies to minimise risk exposure. We develop the understanding,after Power et al. (2009), that such technologies are part of a process ofarchitectural practices seeking to secure their legitimacy, and to ensuretheir reproduction as responsible and reputable organisations.

6.2 Building form, performanceand the regulation of risk

So far in the book we have sought to convey that the practices ofarchitects are regulated by a plethora of rules and regulations relatingto building form and performance, as part of broader societal objec-tives to secure minimum standards of design, including safe andhealthy environments. These include design conventions and culturalcodes relating to aesthetic styles, legal regulation seeking to controlthe usage of materials, health and safety directives about use ofconstruction techniques, design and costing parameters provided byclients, procurement-types, and subject specific inputs from projectspecialists, including quantity surveyors and letting agents. In combi-nation, these are indicative of a broad and complex ‘regulatory field’, inwhich different dimensions of the design and development process areconstrued, by government and non-government actors and agents, as‘risky’ and possessing capacities to create hazards and insecurities(RIBA, 2005). Such risks include not only those to the buildings to bedesigned and constructed, but also those that relate to the ways inwhich projects are organised, developed, and delivered.

The ensuing organisational complexity, relating to the developmentand delivery of design projects, means that risk might be difficult toanticipate, predict, control, or subject to calculative interventions(Beck, 1992, 1999). However, the mentalities of much of the designand construction profession reproduce what Gephart et al. (2009: 143)refer to as ‘the cognitive science perspective on risk’, placing faith in the

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modern post-enlightenment application of science and technology ‘tothemanagement and control of the insecurities of life’ (Tr€uby, 2005: 24).The underlying conception of risk here revolves around the modernistunderstanding that it is manageable and preventable by recourse tosystems of empirical data collection, governance and regulation. Risk, inthis view, is an objective phenomenon, amenable to its measurementand amelioration through the application of purposive systems ofregulation. It is, as Gephart et al. (2009: 141) suggest, part of a socio-political andcultural value system that conceivesof society as ‘capableofdealing with its own foreseeable future’ (also see Miller, 2009).

The development of building control is one example of the modern-ist conception of risk, whereby state directives set out minimumstandards of building performance, based on a series of generalformulae (Hawkesworth and Imrie, 2009, Imrie, 2004, 2007, van derHeijden, 2009). Such formulae, written as rules and standards, were, asoutlined in chapters 2 and 3, a response to the emergence of denseurban forms in the 19th century that generated risks and hazardsrelating to the density of development, the construction of buildings,and the use of new fuels, such as gas and electricity. McLean (2003), forinstance, outlines instances of death due to boiler explosions in theUSA, citing the case of the SS Sultana steamship that, in 1865, blew upon the Mississippi river with the loss of 1547 lives. The subsequentpublic outrage provided some impetus for the development of safertechnologies, although, as McLean (2003: 45) notes, it was not until theearly 20th century that the ‘state began to enact police powers . . . inrelation to health and safety laws’.

The state’s policing of design and construction activities has sincebeen significantly extended, characterised by the codification of build-ing regulation in law, and the development of other legal directivesrelating to diverse aspects of construction, planning, health and safety.One example, in the UK, is the CDM (2007) industrial regulation thatplaces a responsibility on principal contractors to prepare a‘construction phase plan’, as part of a process of risk minimisation tohealth and safety. This is part of what we termed, in chapter 3, a‘regulatory explosion’ in the UK, a bureaucratic burden creating addi-tional work for architects and other professionals. This was highlightedin a government report on building regulations which suggested thatthe system is ‘evolving in an inefficient and ineffective manner . . . [with]excessive complexity and a lack of clarity’ (DCLG, 2007: 10). Likewise, inthe USA, a plethora of legal regulations and rules, relating to buildingwork, exists, leading observers to note that they act, potentially, as adeterrent to good architecture and, in some instances, as an adminis-trative burden that contributes directly to discourage development(May and Wood, 2003, Woudhuysen et al., 2004).

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While formalised external systems of regulation seek to intervene in,and ameliorate the effects of, risky objects in the design process, weconcur with Morgan and Engwall (1999) that much of the regulation ofrisk in relation to the design process is informal and not necessarilyembedded in law, legal principle, and application. Rather, the designprocess, and the practices of architects, is shaped by a complexity ofinter-organisational relations, and related modes of regulation andgovernance that stem from non-state sources (Sarfatti-Larson, 1993).In particular, the opening up of possible risks occurs through a highlyindividuated dispersed design and development process that involvesmultiple actors with different roles, responsibilities, and expectations(Bentley, 1999, Habraken, 2005, Woudhuysen et al., 2004). In mostinstances, architects are part of a complex (vertical) hierarchy of projectcontrol and command, subject to checks, constraints, and regulation (ofactions) through what Habraken (2005: 143) refers to as ‘interfaceconditions, boundaries, and limits of responsibility’.

The interfaces between architects and heterogeneous actors in thedesign processmay also be characterised bywhat some refer to as post-bureaucratic formations, and a partial dissolution of traditional hierar-chical organisational and professional boundaries and modes of exper-tise, and their recombination in different, often novel, ways (Clarke andNewman, 1997, Heydebrand, 1989). The assemblage of design projectteams comprises a complexity of actor interactions that are often akin towhat Callon (1991: 132) refers to as a ‘techno-economic network’, or ahybridity of organisational forms that, for Miller et al. (2008: 944), ‘makepossible lateral informationflows and cooperationacross theboundariesof organisations’. It is the intersection between different parts of hybridformations, at the juncture of (their) organisational boundaries, whichexposes professionals, such as architects, to new practices, processes,and forms of expertise. Such exposure may require professionals toadapt by acquiring new competences and understandings, and a trans-formation in skills sets and mentalities.

For Reches (2009), these complicated structures create the potentialof (new forms of) risk exposure for the individual firm, architect, andother professionals that are not easily predictable or controllable (alsosee Power, 2004). This is related partly to the short-lived nature of theproject networks, which are usually assembled on a project-by-projectbasis and involving a different (re)combination of professionals eachtime (RIBA, 2005). This creates potential risks relating to how far stablenetworks can be constructed to allay institutional mistrust, and thusprovide a basis for trust to be built and established between actors toensure the successful completion of the project. The interdependenciesof actors in project networks mean that this process may be fraught,time-extensive, and orientated towards a mixture of behaviour. Theseinclude strategies of individual risk aversion, or, as is evident in most

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design project contexts, risk sharing arrangements characterised byPower (2004: 7) as ‘the design of contracts with the power to bondagents to principles’.

The power of such bonds may be tested by the market orientation ofthe design and development process that, as Morgan and Engwall(1999) suggest, makes it especially vulnerable to risky behaviour andactivities. Architects operate in project contexts whereby trust inpartner organisations to deliver to time and budget, is bound bycontracts and specifications. Yet, this is no guarantee that contractswill be honoured or that externalities relating to market conditions,such as bankruptcy or failure of supply chains, will be mitigated oreliminated (Sarfatti-Larson, 1993). Likewise, the property market isprone to fluctuations, even failure, due to the imbalance of informationbetween producers and consumers (Morgan and Engwall, 1999). Thismay prompt architects, and other design and development profes-sionals, to create regulatory capability and systems to reduce riskthrough the context of what Morgan and Engwall (1999: 5) describeas ‘explicit systems of rules or in implicit norms of conduct and action’.

The uncertainties associated with both market relations and frag-mented forms of project organisation and delivery, combined with anincreasing emphasis by government and non-government actors onhealth, safety, and building risk management, are part of a contextunderpinning what some see as the ‘re-managerialisation of risk’. ForPower (2007: 23), this is ‘the attempt to subject it [risk] to systematiccontrols so as to increase confidence in social processes’. Anecdotalevidence suggests that this is evident in architecture. The RIBA (2005: 7)encourages architects to become ‘street wise’ by ‘discouraging pro-fessional norms and behaviours’ that are ‘outdated’ and, instead, toconstruct ‘virtuous organisational control’, including formalised risksharing, such as employing contractors under design-and-build con-tracts to reduce risk of budget overruns. At the heart of the process isthe emergence of ‘self governing’, in which the regulation of riskyobjects is less likely to occur through centralised, state-administered,strategies of risk control, and more through a series of technologies ofrisk governance encouraging self conduct.

Such conduct increasingly requires organisations to demonstratecompetence in risk management (and regulation). In particular, archi-tectural firms’ involvement in risk based regulation, such as self certifi-cation of parts of the building control process, the appointment of ‘riskauditors’, and auditing of compliance with health and safety directives,provides opportunities to demonstrate capacities as ‘self-reflective andself-improving’ organisational actors that can be trusted. The indivi-dualisation of risk, and its regulation and management, thus become akey element in (architectural) firms’ self presentation to potential clientsand other project partners, as competent, trustworthy, or having ‘a

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distinctive style of organisational discipline and accountability’ (Power,2007: 23, also see O’Malley, 2004). This is part of what some see asreputational risk management, whereby firms change internal proce-dure and process to assure rationalised delivery of risk management, insuch a way that ‘blame avoidance’ is put into place as part of broader(self-)regulatory measures.

The regulatory/risk environment has implications for the practices ofarchitects, relating to reorganisation of functions, development of newresponsibilities, and potential broadening of architects’ roles (Bentley,1999, Habraken, 2005, Imrie, 2007, RIBA, 2005). Some evidence sug-gests that professionals are spending more time on practices such asauditing and collating of data (or evidence of risk management),creating ‘paper trails’, as well as engaging in less-formalised practicesrelating to risk sharing or ‘offloading’ risks, which may conflict with, oreven undermine, risk-reducing standards such as CDM (RIBA, 2005).Likewise, the practices of architects are increasingly legalised andsubject to (the threat of) litigation (Harmon, 2003). This potentiallycreates defensive and risk averse behaviour. Power (2007: 170) refers tothis as ‘legalistically constructedpractices’, in which conformity to rules,and the setting up of compliance mechanisms, takes up a greater partof the practices of architects.

In summary, architecture is entwined in risk and its regulation in anumber of ways. Foremost, legal state-centred rules and regulationsare broadening the scope of what constitutes risky objects (to beregulated) in the design and development process. This potentiallycontributes to task enlargement related to the development of newsystems of regulation. In turn, this is interlinkedwith what appears to begreater legal risk and litigation, andmore reliance on self regulation, orthe individualisation of responses to possibilities of ‘blame dis-placement’ for elements of project failure. The dispersed decentrednature of the design process also constitutes, we would argue, a keycontext of/for regulation, in which regulatory activity and behaviour areco-produced through a complexity of interactions between projectpartners. However, there is little or no knowledge, beyond anecdote, ofhow far architects feel that their practices are influenced by issues ofrisk and regulation, and the impacts on the design and developmentprocess. This is a theme that we now turn to.

6.3 Risk, regulation, and architecture:some evidence from the UK

In this part of the chapter, we explore architects’ perceptions of howfar, and in what ways, their practices are entwined with, and influenced

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by, risk and regulation. We divide the rest of the section into two parts.First, drawing across our different data sets, we outline the significanceof risk and its regulation in influencing the practices of architects. Weseek to understand architects’ focus on the management of risk asrelated to the emergence of hybrid organisations, in which the architectis part of a process of managing risky objects associated with projectdevelopment and delivery through the context of often decentred anddispersed organisational forms (Clarke and Newman, 1997). Suchformations, we argue, have potential to increase the risk exposure ofarchitectural firms and to destabilise their operations, with conse-quences for their longevity. We develop the understanding, afterPower et al., (2009), that the potential for instability is a basis forprompting risk management, particularly in relation to securing repu-tation by recourse to the (risk) management of both internal andexternal systems relating to project development and delivery.

Second, we suggest that securing reputation, as a means of main-taining organisational stasis or stability, is related to a rationality oforganising, characterised by a proliferation and use of techniques thatcan be described as conceiving risk as ‘objective and assured to exist inreal form in the world’ (Gephart et al., 2009, 143). This is part of acalculative rationality or series of mentalities that render risk as ame-nable to control through regulation (also seeDean, 2007, Hawkesworthand Imrie, 2009, O’Malley, 2004, Power, 2004, 2007, Rose and Miller,1992). We outline and evaluate the key ways in which architects seek tomanage risky objects in the design process, by developing and apply-ing particular techniques (of risk management). Here, we highlight thesignificance of both the collectivisation and individualisation of riskmanagement, and the importance of internal systems to ensure, as faras is practicable, the delivery of ‘risk free’ systems of design.

a) Hybridisation and the risk management of reputation

An important part of architecture is its co-production through net-worked governance characterised by a complexity of organisationalforms and processes. This complexity is recognised by a number ofwriters. Habraken (2005: 56) suggests that architects operate within,increasingly, ‘complex rules of performance and procedure’ relating tothemultiple parts of the building process (also see Bentley, 1999, Imrie,2007, Mackenzie and Martinez Lucio, 2005, RIBA, 2000, 2005, Sarfatti-Larson, 1993). The multiplicity is, as will be discussed in chapter 7, amatrix of relational networks in which, it is alleged, there is a dissolutionof professional identities and dispersal of functions to contractors andothers not traditionally part of the design and construction process.There is ambivalence about professional identity and role ascription, so

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that it is no longer easy to identify who does what, or who, precisely, isthe architect. Noordegraaf (2007: 775) describes such contexts as ‘neo-bureaucratic settings . . . with hybridized organizational forms’ (alsosee, Heydebrand, 1989, Mackenzie and Martinez Lucio, 2005).

These hybridised forms are characterised not only by an extension ofthe range of actors involved, directly or indirectly, in the developmentand delivery of projects, but by the formation of often unstableinterdisciplinary networks to deliver design and construction out-comes. These, for Noordegraaf (2007: 775), ‘cannot be easilyorganized’, and they could expose organisations to network failuresand uncertainties that, in Power’s (2007: 23) terms, ‘must be organisedas risks to be managed’. Such uncertainties relate to all aspects ofproject design and implementation, including risks relating to controlof costs, project overruns, defects, and accidents. This leads to aproliferation of rules, procedures, and practices relating to the coordi-nation andmanagement of design and construction risks, ranging fromthe use of legal contracts outlining the content of procurement pro-cesses, to the specification of the obligations and responsibilities ofdifferent actors. As one of our respondents said, ‘our profession is quitea risky profession, it’s becoming more risky . . . risk is what we do for aliving, we are risk-brokers, effectively, aren’t we?’

Such sentiments were reaffirmed by respondents to the survey whofelt that issues of risk, and their regulation, were not only at the forefrontof the design process but were much more a part of their job than fiveyears previously. As Table 6.1 shows, the majority of respondentsstrongly agreed or agreed with the statement that ‘the design processis highly influenced by considerations of risk’ (148 respondents or 61%).One architect suggested that ‘much of our work here is defined byrisk’, while, for another, ‘we dodesigners’ risk assessments, wedopre-tender health and safety plans’. The considerations of risk aremultipleand include responding to legal rules such as a building regulation orhealth and safety directive, to ensuring risk minimisation in relation toaspects of project development anddelivery (Blau, 1984). Thus, as one

Response Number Percent

Non response 4 1.7Strongly agree 45 18.7Agree 103 42.7Neither agree nor disagree 72 29.9Disagree 13 5.4Strongly disagree 4 1.7

Total 241 100

Table 6.1 ‘The design process is highly influenced by considerations of risk’

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respondent said, ‘there are all sorts of risks . . . planning risk . . . energyrisk . . .’ Others referred to ‘programme risks’, or the risk of a projectrunning over time, and to ‘financial risks’, or the risk of a projectrunning over budget.

These responses convey that risk, for architects, stems from multiplesources, and that it is not easily definable or reducible to any specificactor, agent, or type of risk (also see O’Malley, 2004, 2005). The term‘risk’ is considered, by some, to be ambiguous, and even vague and ill-defined, or, as Power (2004: 13) suggests, ‘the concept remains elusive,contested, and inherently controversial’ (also see Fischoff et al., 1984,Garland, 2003). Most respondents feel that they are living in a ‘riskproliferation society’, or one whereby everything is deemed to be apotential risk that requires a plan or means of mitigation. Somerespondents suggested that part of the problem is government andproject partners ‘inventing’ risks, or exaggerating potentially riskysituations, and one architect said, ‘it seems as though everything isa risk now’ (also see O’Malley, 2004, 2005, Power, 2004). An outcomeis, as another architect commented, ‘all valid but we’ve becomebesotted with the process rather than having this in the background’.

The foregrounding of risk in architects’ work is perceived as stemmingfrom the escalation in external government controls emanating from arange of agencies relating to the regulation of health, safety, andbuilding form and performance. As highlighted in chapter 5, this esca-lation feels, as one architect said, ‘something that is exponential andnever-ending’. Others concurred in noting the escalation of regulationwith a respondent suggesting that ‘what’s changed is that where youwere working before and you had five British Standards you’ve now got55 British Standards, so you can’t work the way you worked before’.Instead, architects are often absorbed with developing managementcompetencies akin to what Hoggart (1996) and others describe as themanagerialisation of modern organisations (also see Clarke and New-man, 1997). One architect outlined a widely held view that ‘much of thetime is now spent managing the process, and managing others’.

Part of the bureaucratic burden is the contracting out of work, andarchitects’ buying in specialist help. As intimated in chapter 5, there isevidence of architects increasingly ‘buying in’ advice and specialistexpertise as part of a process formanaging riskmanagement, includingassistance with interpretation and implementation of health and safetystandards, those relating to materials used in construction, and build-ing regulations. This is part of a process producing lateral informationflows and networking across the boundaries of architects’ firms andnewly emerging specialists, a process referred to by Miller et al. (2008)as the ‘hybridising of expertise’. This was explained by one architect asco-producing knowledge with the help of specialist contractors to

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ensure risk minimisation: ‘we’re having to rely on . . . niche professionsbefore we can actually deliver our completed building . . . previouslyPart D regulations were relatively straightforward, but because we’rean increasingly litigious society . . . I’d be very reluctant to do someparty wall . . . and not get them checked over by an acoustic engineer.’

These observations highlight the importance of new governingactors as part of the process of risk management in architecture. Suchactors are part of what Power (2007: 22) refers to as ‘the opening up ofnew spaces of managerial action’, in which the invention and definitionof the (risk) objects to be targeted, and the problems to be solved, arepart of a ‘self-fulfilling’ modus operandi. Thus, the new ‘risk actors’ are,as Power (2007: 99) suggests, ‘conspicuously the creators and carriersof templates for managing risk’, or individuals to enable (architectural)firms to ameliorate the harmful effects of risky objects and/or uncer-tainties in the development and delivery of projects. For architecturalfirms, faced with regulation relating to (risky) building form and per-formance, such ‘risk actors’ are part of a process for securing internalcontrol, through what Power (2007: 84) conceives of as ‘creatingactionable response paths’. In referring to building maintenance, onearchitect outlined how the process had become programmatic and ledby ‘actionable’ mentalities: ‘whereas before, I’m sure, maintenanceengineers would run round with a set of steps and just run up theladder, change it and job done. Now, I mean . . . you need to sort ofhave your whole action plan laid out.’

Not surprisingly, at the core of architects’ responses to risk (and itsregulation) is the management of multiple, and multiplying, actors inproject teams related to adispersal of activities, andwhatwasperceivedas the possible threat of litigation for breach of contract or negligence(Table6.2).As thedesignprocessbecomes increasingly stretchedacrossa network of organisations, legal liabilities become paramount to thepoint whereby, as one person suggested, it ‘overpowers everything’,and ‘everyone is scared ofmaking a decision’. Several respondents haveadopted ‘low-risk strategies’ in their work to avoid litigation, and, as one

Response Number Percent

Non response 4 1.7Strongly agree 66 27.4Agree 102 42.3Neither agree nor disagree 59 24.5Disagree 7 2.9Strongly disagree 3 1.2

Total 241 100

Table 6.2 ‘There is more risk of litigation against architects than five years ago’

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architect commented, ‘our society is increasingly litigious and as suchthe architect must err towards the low-risk strategies’. Others agreed:‘we do not want to get sued trying to reinvent things which might gowrong’; and ‘we have a moral obligation to avoid risk – and, in a highlylitigious arena, a financial imperative’.

For some architects, part of the (risk) culture relates to fear of blame,underpinned by lack of trust in other actors and systems to check orcontrol elements of practice. As one architect noted, a lack of trust isreflected in the assemblage of legal teams in projects: ‘the one thingyou notice on teams, big teams for big projects, is there’s a massiveteam of lawyers involved as well . . . redefining contracts, or writingcontracts from scratch’. Others suggested that the system appeared tobe about ‘apportioning blame’, or at least about risk reduction byensuring that risk can be shared between the different project partners.One architect felt that the emerging risk culture is one whereby ‘thereare many people interested in covering their own backs and simplywant to shift the risk to others’. Others were more circumspect inconceiving of the need for ‘regulatory strategies’, such as legal con-tracts, to ensure project delivery, thus reflecting Power’s (2007: 170)observation, that legalisation ‘creates spaces for strategic manoeuvre’.

Such manoeuvres can be understood, in part, as firms seeking tosecure their reputationsby recourse toactions that, asPoweretal. (2009:302) suggest, ‘becomea benchmark of being a legitimate organisation’.The dispersed networks that are part of the complexities of the designprocess mean that architects are exposed to the gaze and discipline ofnumerousexternal bodies that ‘evaluateand rank, and therebygeneratereputational risk’ (Power et al., 2009: 301). The management of reputa-tional risk is a way of organising conduct, andmost respondents felt thatit was generating a risk-averse, or defensive, attitude as part of thenormalised mentalities of securing reputation. One architect commen-ted, ‘risk avoidance is at the heart of all informed design decisions. Wedo not “trail blaze” using untried materials and techniques’. For others,the risk culture is anti-innovative and likely to hold the design processback. As one architect said, ‘in terms of creative architecture, I think thatis really, really negative, because it’s only the brave or the rich who areprepared to actually try things, risk things’, while, for another, ‘you endup with a sort of tolerable bland conformity . . . it suppresses thepotential for people to expand the edges’.

As part of the process to secure reputation, architects feel that theyare spending more time on risk management, both on a project-by-project basis (163 survey respondents or 70%) and on general office-based procedures (159 or 65%). Much of the time expended is char-acterised by the internal regulation of risk, providing the opportunityfor architects to show potential clients that they are ‘less risky’ than

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competitors or, as one respondent said, ‘it’s not cutting costs, it’sgetting cost certainty. What clients want is cost certainty; they don’twant risk’. For most architects, there is no choice but to be involved inrisk management and the regulation of risk because it is part of ‘goodbusiness’ and developing a ‘reliable reputation’. This concurs withPower (2007: 196), and others, who suggest that reputation and blameare ‘distinctive kinds of meta risk objects for all organisations’. Animportant aspect of this is ‘governing reputation’ and with ‘the height-ened preoccupation with how organisations are seen’ (Power, 2007:23). Thus, reputational risk is part of the organisational landscape andas one respondent said, ‘if you get the risk wrong, I think, [it] could be abit of a nightmare’, while, for another, ‘the issue is about, you know, youtalk about it protecting the profession’.

b) Calculative rationalities and the managementof risky objects

As suggested in the previous section, the risks associated with theoperations of dispersed organisational forms place more onus on themanagement of risk in ways that seek to heighten the reputation offirms, and potentially to enhance the ‘production of value’, This is at thebasis of what Power (2004: 30) refers to as organisations seeking ‘todemonstrate that they are in control’. There is evidence that thepractices of architects increasingly revolve around the use of auditableitems, calculative operations, and techniques and instruments to assurethe minimisation of risk (to their organisations) (also see Dean, 1999,O’Malley, 2005). Core to the process is the internal regulation of risk, orthe development and use of mechanisms to ensure that the organisa-tion is able to respond to the breadth of regulatory/risk contexts,including health, safety, and building regulations. Much of the processis not about an organisation’s management of the underlying risks perse, butmore about their management of the specific risks that they face(Power, 1997).

The increase in risk and its regulation has implications for the conductof architecture, particularly in relation to the role of managerial andadministrative practices and processes. The onus on architects is thedevelopment of management systems to deliver project outcomes, aprocess that Power (2007: 35) describes as leading to ‘a calculativerationality to measure, manage, and reduce possibilities of risk inorganisational behaviour and activities’ (also see Dean, 2007). Suchobservations were reaffirmed, in interview, by a past president of theRIBA who said that the architect is responsible, first and foremost, forcalculating how building work may affect health and safety. As heexplained:

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We’re required under the law now to write a health and safety plan at the

beginning of the project; it’s our responsibility to flag up the issues that

need to be considered, in terms of how the building is built, what materials

are specified, how materials are moved round the site, what kind of risks

are associated with the building process, and what kind of issues will arise

in terms of how the building is maintained.

Core to the practices of architects is the governance of risk as part of aprocess for mitigating and avoiding harm (Dean, 2007, Power, 2007,O’Malley, 2004). Such governance is being developed through thecontext of what Power (2007: 22) refers to as ‘enterprise risk manage-ment’ (ERM), or a managerial discourse about risk and its management(Power, 2004, 2007). For Power, ERM is broad in scope and not a unitarycategory or necessarily concerned with rigid control or discipline ofactions. Rather, it seeks to encourage the development and use oftechniques and instruments to manage and regulate risk ‘as a funda-mental constituent of the production of value’ (Power, 2007: 69). ERMpromotes a ‘way of thinking’, or disposition, towards the use andmanagement of regulatory knowledge, partly to promote the develop-ment of systems to minimise ‘risks to profits’, internal control to assure‘risk-free behaviour’, and use of both internal staff appointments, andexternal agents and actors, as ‘risk managers’.

In particular, the contractual nature of much design and develop-ment work reflects the onus on the ‘production of value’, and controlover ‘risks to profits’. This is core to the use of two-stage design-and-build (D&B) contracts by clients keen to reduce their exposure to risingcosts during construction. D&B is perceived as offering greater cer-tainty of cost and completion date compared to more traditionalcontract types because the contractor effectively assumes the risks byworking on a fixed-fee basis once a design package has been agreed.From a client’s perspective, traditional contracts rely on contractorsensuring that there is enough contingency or ‘risk money’ to coverproblems that may arise after the build budget has been set. As oneclient explained, ‘if he’smissed things out then effectively he has to haveenough risk money to cover it or he’s got to manufacture claims, and Ithink this, forme, thatwas theproblem’. In contrast, theD&B route takes‘someof the risk out’ and, as one architect suggested, it is indicative of amore ‘risk-averse’ approach to design and construction:

There’s a big desire to transfer risk and that one of the simplest ways of

doing that is through some sort of design-build type contract where you

can avoid a traditional area of conflict, which is between the contractor and

the information that it’s been issued with . . . If you put those two elements

into one, so you’re responsible for both the information and the building

then from the client’s perspective that seems to be good.

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While D&B contracts are focused on regulating ‘cost/profit risks’, byimposing fiscal discipline on partner organisations, much of architects’focus in managing ‘risky objects’ relates to the development of internalcontrol, or what Power (2007: 35) refers to ‘as a distinctive mode oforganisational uncertainty handling’ (also see Dean, 2007, Power, 2004,Rose and Miller, 1992, Spira and Page, 2003). Several respondents out-lined the importance of internalised systems of ‘self regulation’ or thepressure to develop approaches to riskmanagement to account for (their)actions (Dean,1999, 2007). Thus, part of the rise in regulatory behaviour inarchitecture is the use of what Dean (1999) describes as ‘moral tech-nologies’, such as checking, verifying, auditing, and paper trailing. Suchtechnologies are part of what Parker (2002) describes as meta-regulationor the regulationof self regulation, that is, theutilisationof systemsthat, forPower (2007: 40), are ‘designed to make key trust variables visible’.

An illustration of internal, process-based, risk management is the ‘riskregister’ or ‘design problem schedule’ (Figure 6.1). Here, a member ofthe design team, usually the cost consultant or project manager, sets upa document that lists a series of potential risks specific to the project,calculates the likelihoodof themoccurring, and identifies potential waysto avoid them. The project team has a series of meetings whereby therisks are ‘delegated’ to different members who take responsibility formanaging them. In interview, one respondent noted that ‘it’s part of thewhole process now. We have to provide designers’ risk assessments atevery stageof the designprocess . . . I think it’s a gooddiscipline to have,I think some of it can turn into meaningless piles of paper this high, for asmall project, that nobody ever looks at, but I think it’s a good disciplinefor our architects to have to go through that process’. However, heacknowledged that the process was one of ensuring that the firm wasseen to be covering, to the best of their abilities, all possible riskscenarios: ‘you think of all of the things that could be dangerous andyou put them down on a list so that if something does happen that youdidn’t think of at least you can say “well, we did an assessment”.’

While the risk register seeks to respond to a perceived need forinternal control relating to risk assessment, most respondents observedthat recourse toaudit, evaluation, andperformance indicatorswaskey towhat one architect referred to as ‘showing our value’. As a clientexplained, ‘you have to demonstrate that you have considered the riskproperly and the only way you can really do that is with an audit trail,which is paper’. A project manager agreed, noting that setting upauditing systems to ensure that project team members were ‘coveringthemselves’ was a priority. He suggested it was ‘very difficult tomaintainsome kind of organisation around what’s going on with each project . . .because it is just a never-endingpaper trail’.Onearchitect described theauditing process, which, due to the number of personnel involved, had,

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he felt, become a burden: ‘I think what the danger is that it tends tobecome a very large bureaucracy which is set up for dealing with issueswhich, arguably, come down to using common sense’.

Other respondents, however, felt that the process of ‘paper trailing’is important as a means to demonstrate to clients, and other projectpartners, that decisions (and related responsibilities) have been re-solved collectively. As one architect outlined:

One of the stakeholders did something which I think was hugely beneficial,

although I moaned about it at the time: they insisted that every page of

every specification and every drawing that went into the contract was

signed by everybody. So they had a whole morning signing some several

hundred, possibly a thousand plus pieces of paper. Every single person

signed every single page and it was bound and given to everyone. If you

deliver that we’ll have no cause to come back to you.

This testimony illustrates that a key aim of the process was to avoid‘individual blame’ should things go wrong, by taking steps to demon-strate shared accountability in relation to design decisions. Despite theprocess creating paperwork, the architect felt that it helped efficiency,by clarifying channels of communication and itemising roles and re-sponsibilities of different actors. In a later job, when such a ‘paper trail’was absent, he describes some confusion and misunderstanding aboutwho was responsible for what parts of the process:

So you go away and you start designing information, thinking it’s on the

basis of those documents you’ve done earlier, and then you get into an

almighty [mess], you upset people because they’re asking, ‘Why have you

changed it?’ And we say, ‘We haven’t changed it.’ ‘Yes you have.’ ‘No we

haven’t.’ ‘Yes you have.’ ‘No we haven’t.’

Another respondent outlined the use of what he called a ‘memorandumof understanding’ as an important instrument in establishing commu-nication between project team members: ‘Well, it comes down to therisk again. A memorandum of understanding, you know, I’m not a legalfellow but it’s something . . . going to sort of dictate the way peoplebehave with each other.’

For this respondent, the practice of using a simple device, like a memo-randum, was important in working with consultants, when lines of commu-nication between different members of the team were often unclear:

But at the moment the contract for employment of services is between me

and the team of consultants, even though they should, which is when we

hand it over and the responsibility for the employment of the consultants

becomes the contractor’s. So fundamentally the link between, the con-

tractual link between me and the consultants is broken and they are with

them, so they’re their bosses then.

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He felt suchpracticeswere a reflectionofpositivedevelopmentswithin theindustry: ‘I think the industry has got smarter over the years, and I don’tthink you can beat actually fairly and calmly setting out your conditions’.

These examples illustrate, in part, Flyvbjerg et al.’s (2003) observation,that successful risk management depends upon transparency in deci-sion-making. This requires not only the supply of ‘better and morerational information’, but also accountability in relation to risks thatcan be measured through a series of ‘checks and balances’ (Flyvbjerget al., 2003: 7; also, see Dean, 1999, 2007). There was evidence thatdemonstrating accountability was an important practice for architectsand other project professionals. As one respondent recalled, this ofteninvolved going beyond complying with the legislative standards:‘There’s so many documents, quality plans . . . it’s not legislation youhave to comply with but . . . you need to demonstrate that you’reachieving a certain level within the industry’. This corresponds withobservations byO’Malley (2004), Power (2004), and others, that internal,regulatory, control has a ‘managerial and conceptual life of its own as abenchmark of good governance’ (Power, 2007: 47).

While part of the process is about ‘collective responsibility’ towardsrisk, it is also about seeking tomanage, and regulate for, individuals’ riskybehaviour (Dean, 1999, O’Malley, 2004). In this respect, the individua-lisation of the responsibility for risk management, and by extension, thethreat of legal action against individuals, is paramount in the design andconstruction industry (Bentley, 1999, Sarfatti-Larson, 1993).One respon-dent sees architects as ‘an easy target’ or, as he said, ‘increasingly . . .westill carry design liability, and everybody tries to put it onto us’. As onearchitect explained, thepossibilitiesof litigationhadchangedbehaviour:‘You’ve always got to have it in the back of your mind, and I was alwaystrained to actually confirmevery discussion inwriting . . . if I get a contractin frommyclient that is not a standardcontract I getmy insurers to reviewit and read it, because it’s better tobe forewarnedand forearmed than tohave something thrown at you at a later date.’

The individualisation of risk (and its regulation) is also occurringthrough the adoption of ‘risk-sharing behaviour’, more commonlyknown as ‘risk spreading’ whereby risk is ‘allocated’ to different mem-bers of a project team. As one participant commented, ‘contractors nolonger take responsibility for their workmanship – [they are] hidingbehind regulation for guidelines’. Because of the litigious nature of thedevelopment process, one respondent felt that ‘sending the risk downthe line’ to other project partners was appropriate. As he said, ‘from anarchitect’s point of view . . .we can pass on design risk to subcontractorsand that, to me, is a good thing’. For others, however, it is a perpetua-tion of unequal power relations between different actors in the devel-opment process, more akin to risk displacement and blaming than risksharing (O’Malley, 2004, Miller et al., 2008, Spira and Page, 2003). One

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architect articulated a commonly held view: ‘to me it’s sort of lazy, it’sjust, it’s somebody else’s fault, blame them, sue them, let the insurancecover it’.

6.4 Conclusions

Risk and regulation are entwined or, to echo Morgan and Engwall(1999: 2), ‘the risk society is a regulatory society’. This observation isparticularly relevant to architecture given the embedding of risk andregulation into the social and organisational relations of urban design,characterised by exposure to health and safety risks, and risks relatingto the physical form and performance of buildings. The findings in thechapter suggest that there is more regulation of activities relating todesign and construction than five years ago, and an onus on architectsto identify, and mitigate, different forms of risk in the design process.This is primarily a result of external stimuli stemming from legalregulation, non-statutory building standards, and market-based pro-cesses in which dispersed systems of project development and deliveryare prone to potential failure and threat (or risk) of litigation. Oneoutcome is heightened awareness, by professionals, of building activityas ‘risky’, and the design process as fraught with ‘risky situations’ thatrequire regulation and risk management as part of a process forsuccessful project development and delivery.

As much is suggested by architects who, in this chapter, reveal theincreasing significance of risk and its regulation as part of their practices,with much more resource being put into, and time expended on, thedevelopment and design of systems to manage risky situations. Suchsystems include the development of internal mechanisms of (risk) con-trol, that revolve around what Power (2007: 194) and others refer to as‘the moral economy of risk governance’. In dispersed organisationalsettings, characterised by dense networks and overlapping roles andresponsibilities, there is an onus on architectural practices to set upprocesses to demonstrate their worth as ‘good organisations’. Theidentification and mitigation of risky objects is core to this process ofwhat is not only ‘self validation’, but the attempt by architects to securereputation in contexts whereby loss of standing and repute is perceivedtobea significant threat.Adiscourse of risk (and its) regulation thereforebecomes part of the ways that architects increasingly articulate whattheir work is, and how creative practice and outcomes may be shaped.

The influence of risk considerations on the content and form of thedesign process is, however, an underemphasised, and largely unex-plored, part of studies of architecture. Beyond anecdote or partialinsight, there is little knowledge about precisely how risk issues

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interconnect with the actions of design and construction professionals,including architects, and what the outcomes for urban form are. Thus,an important task is the development of urban design theory thatacknowledges, and seeks to understand, how the creative designprocess is interconnected with the prosaic and pragmatic processesof the governance and regulation of risk relating to building form andperformance. This can be accomplished, in part, by the development ofa stronger dialogue between academic research that focuses, primari-ly, on architecture as craft and creative practice, that is, a product ofindividual and collective creativity and endeavour, and those that seekto understand such practices as part of a socio-political economy ofurban design.

Interchanges between different epistemic positions, or modes ofunderstanding urban design, can contribute to a broadening of re-search agendas. Foremost, there is a need to understand more abouthow issues of risk (and its regulation) are embedded into the profes-sional identities, positionalities, and practices of architects. Risk notonly relates to material issues of building safety, but is part of the sociallanguage of architecture. How is risk articulated by architects, particu-larly in relation to the ways that they see themselves (as professionals,as creative practitioners)? How far is the governance and managementof risk in architecture likely to change what architects do, or what maybe required of them in increasingly dispersed project networks? Howfar, and in what ways, are their subject positions, or subjectivities, likelyto be challenged and changed by the emergent risk environments? Arearchitects’ actions necessarily risk averse, as suggested by some of thefindings in this chapter, or is there much more variation in the ways inwhich they perceive and respond to risky contexts, and with whatoutcomes for building form?

The rise of risk and regulatory issues in architecture is also concurrentwith similardevelopments inother areasofdesignpractice. This includesthegrowthof codification in urbandesign andplanning, and the internalprocedures of design consultancies (including graphics, visual commu-nication, interior design, and product design) that have been increas-ingly systematised to minimise risk.2 This omnipresence of risk, and itsregulation, is notwell documentedand there is value in knowinghow thespecificity of risk issues related to architectural practice compares to theexperiences in other creative industries. Cross-comparative studies alsoought to be aligned with much more in-depth investigation of theheternonomy of design (Sarfatti-Larson, 1993). Here, the focus shouldbe the study of the micro relations of project teams, because it is in andthrough the intricate interrelationships of project actors and agents thatthe interdependences between risk and creative practice aremost likelyto be revealed.

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Case Study C

Regulating the Design Process: a Risky Business?

The original focus of our work was to study the building regulations and

their interrelationships with architects’ actions and impacts on the design

quality and performance of buildings. It had never been the intention to talk

with architects, and other development professionals, about the specificities

of project risk, but it became part of our conversations when, time and

again, it was raised as one of the most important issues in influencing the

attitudes and behaviour of actors towards the design process. When asked

how to define the term ‘regulation’, respondents, not surprisingly, related it

to planning and building control. It was just as common, however, to

associate regulation with risk, and how risky issues impose a way of

thinking, working, and operating in relation to the design and development

of buildings. This has its roots in the health and safety aspects of building,

and, as one respondent said, ‘the main concern has to be ensuring that the

building is safe to use’.

As indicated in the main part of chapter 6, there was much disquiet

among architects with the demands being placed on them to respond to a

host of risk directives emanating from both government and project

partners. A recurrent issue is the limits placed on the scope of what architects

can design by what are seen, by some, as over-zealous government directives

about risk and the built environment. One architect outlined what he sees as

the disproportionate response of the UK Environment Agency (EA) in

seeking to minimise flood risks to buildings. As he recalled:

This risk-averse attitude to design, again, wouldn’t produce the beautiful

places that we really enjoy. The edge of docks, you know, that lovely

relationship between water and the quayside, well, we’ve been forced, by

the Environment Agency, in case somebody gets wet with a wave, to put . . .

1400 high barriers the whole way round Royal William yard in Plymouth.

Well, it’s absolutely bonkers, it completely wrecks the feel of the place.

The understanding of respondents is that by following national guidelines,

such as those of the EA, they will provide some protection from legal action

in the event of a building failure. However, there was disquiet with such

guidelines, in relation to what was perceived to be their negative impact on

design quality. One architect outlined widely held feelings:

If we follow the national building specification and we follow recom-

mended details of . . . we’re pretty damn safe, but it doesn’t necessarily

respond well to local conditions or look right, you know, especially

aesthetically, or encourage imagination. There has been a tendency by

government, well-meaning government . . . to economise on affordable

housing and things like that, to produce standard details for housing

associations right across the country. Now that is, that is much worse than

planning codes.

Such views are to the fore with new directives relating to risk, terror threats,

and the design of the built environment. The insertion of anti-terrorist

measures into the built environment is one of the most visible ways that

risk-reduction measures are implicated in the work of architects. Following

the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack in the USA, governments across the

world have sought to increase anti-terrorism measures, particularly in

global cities such as New York and London. In 2007, the UK government

commissioned a review of how to protect crowded places from terrorist

attack, and identified the need to design counter-terrorism measures into

new buildings as a way to ‘incorporate unobtrusive security measures that

blend well with the local environment’ (Home Office and CLG, 2009: 1). In

part, this was a response to widespread criticism of the addition of

temporary barriers and bollards, such as those at the US Embassy in

London and the Palace of Westminster (Figures C.1 and C.2).

The early engagement of a design professional is seen as key in the

development of safe, secure places. Speaking at the ‘Places versus Fortresses’

conference in 2009, the then security minister, Adam West, said: ‘I’d like

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architects to talk to our experts [and] always bear [counterterrorism] in

mind when designing a building. I’d like to think they are receptive’ (quoted

in Lazell, 2009). The RIBA’s response to this has raised concerns about levels

of training amongst local planning officers, and a feeling that there is a

disproportionate emphasis on the risk of vehicle bombs (Bloomfield, 2009).

In the RIBA’s own (2010) guidance on counter-terrorism the president,

Ruth Reed, warns, ‘If design retreats to a bunker mentality and colludes in

the restriction or exclusion of the general public from many public build-

ings, or the creation of a sense of unease in crowded places, there will be a

greater sense of alienation from all corners of society’ (RIBA 2010: 2). These

views reflect a wider sense of unease, amongst architects, about the demands

that risk-reduction measures, such as counter-terrorism initiatives, place

upon designers (see the main part of chapter 6). With a new National

Security Strategy currently being developed by the UK coalition govern-

ment, it remains to be seen how great an emphasis their anti-terrorism

policy will place upon architecture and urban form, although it seems likely

to remain a key focus of activity in seeking to create safe, secure, and liveable

places.

While many respondents recognise the value of risk minimisation in

relation to terror threats, and do not oppose the underlying sentiments of

Figure C.1 Embassy of the United States in London, Grosvenor Square. The road-blocks put in place at the Grosvenor Square site, following the 2001 terrorist attack,have been the source of a long battle between the Embassy and local residents. Thelatter have argued that the measures put their properties at increased risk of attack,and were ugly additions to the built environment (Philp, 2010).

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safety and security directives, most feel that contemporary ‘risk culture’ is

indicative of an over protective society, in which the professional no longer

has the trust of government or the public. As one respondent said, ‘you feel

your integrity is at stake, always having to prove what you do’, a reference to

the fact that the job is subject, increasingly, to surveillance, including close

monitoring, through audit, of the minutiae of day-to-day tasks. For

another, the main problem that architects face relates to dealing with

societal attitudes towards behaviour and risk that are intolerant of anything

that might be deemed a threat to personal safety, no matter how small or

implausible the risks may be. One respondent described a project he had

been involved in that appeared to take the definition of risk to extremes:

I suppose the most obvious situation relates to say flat roof design,

where what we’ve been used to doing is if you design a flat roof or even

if you design a gently sloping roof, then the roof is assumed to be out of

bounds, except where you actually physically prescribe an access route.

We’ve had a job fairly recently, which was a library which we built, which

had a flat roof, where the mechanical plant was in a designated area, was all

Figure C.2 Security measures and the diminution of aesthetic quality? A reaction tothe perception that security aesthetics may detract from building quality is a shifttowards unobtrusive measures as highlighted in this photograph. Marian Hawkes-worth (personal communication) describes this in the following terms: ‘the emergingemphasis of government policy is to make security features in our cities invisible, orunobtrusive, rather than highly visible, through the use of softer design features, suchas the use of trees for defensive cordons, large flower planters, sculptures andstreetscape solutions’. Photo credit: Marian Hawkesworth.

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surrounded by railings with defined walkways to it, and the health and

safety executive decided that because somebody unlawfully could actually

get over these railings, could then walk to the edge of the roof and could

possibly then throw themselves off, that the entire perimeter of the roof

should be protected. Now that’s the sort of thing, and I mean I’ve got lots

of friends in the business who are having a very similar kind of debate with

the health and safety executive about those sorts of issues, and there’s a

point at which you . . . you just think there’s a certain degree of madness. I

mean it’s a bit like somebody suddenly deciding that when you stand on

the edge of a platform on the underground that the platform needs to be

guarded the whole way along, as you now do on the Jubilee Line for

example. So does that then suddenly make all the other underground

stations unsafe?

A characteristic of the risk culture, for some respondents, appears to be

about ‘buck passing’ and deflecting responsibilities for actions and out-

comes. One respondent provided an example of how they pass risk ‘along

the line’: ‘. . . before the job goes out to tender the planning supervisor gets

all the designers to do risk assessments, which highlight potentially dan-

gerous things so that they can possibly be designed out, but also so that they

say to the builder, “when you build this building there are certain risks that

we draw your attention to”.’ While this seems reasonable, some feel that this

places liability on those not necessarily able to control individuals’ behav-

iour, or anticipate, and deal with, all possible ‘risk scenarios’. As one person

argued: ‘if at the end of the day some idiot drives a dumper-truck down a

hole, even if it’s hoarded off and signed, he’s an idiot, and that’s what often

happens, it’s an idiot doing something’.

He amplified by suggesting that it is more or less impossible to ‘risk assess’

such situations, and that the requirement to do so comes from those that do

not appreciate the job that design and development professionals are doing.

As he outlined:

. . . and then the builder would have lots of documentation to show “thou

shalt not drive dumper-trucks down holes” and “thou shalt put adequate

warning signs around”, which they would have done, but at the end of the

day the poor bloke’s dead. So, and I think a lot of this bureaucracy comes

from people sitting in Whitehall or wherever it is, and they’re not doing

the job that I do and the builders do and the building inspectors do and the

people who are really doing it.

Many respondents also feel that changes in the nature of procurement,

particularly towards the use of design and build, displaces risk along the

chain of actors, and creates much more ‘risk exposure’ (also see the main

part of chapter 6). As one architect said, ‘It’s from on high, “Thou shalt

procure buildings.” The estates department, “You shall procure buildings

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through design and build because it gives us more guarantee of the end

date.” Well, it’s risk averse. That’s exactly what they want it to be, risk

averse.’ Another outlined the typical situation they now faced in relation to

dealing with clients: ‘They [the clients] like that risk to be borne by the

contractor and then the designers. They did procure previously on tradi-

tional [contracts] and it hurt them, for whatever the reason, and they’ve not

opened their minds up to going back.’

The design-and-build procurement route is part of a broader shift

towards risk management, and this is creating a new set of (risk ameliora-

tion) tasks and tools, including a different disposition or mindset towards

work. As one of our respondents said, ‘It’s as though it’s about the process,

spending more time on ensuring that we’re not liable for anything.’ For

another, this translated into ‘a risk workshop . . . you sit down and think,

what could possibly go wrong? What should we do about it? You talk about

asbestos and that sort of thing . . .’ Risk amelioration becomes more or less

an end in itself, and was described by some respondents as akin to a ‘deficit

position’ or one whereby the work of architects is absorbed less by design

andmore by the proliferation of paperwork and the tendency, by those with

responsibilities for risk assessment, to try to cover all possible scenarios

relating to risky events.

The result is, as one respondent suggested, much less emphasis on

‘common sense’ and an onus on audit and checks and controls. As he

suggested, ‘. . . all this [is] to do with health and safety, which is, you know,

I’m not for a moment saying it’s silly. But . . .’ Others highlighted the time

and effort expended on risk assessment that, they felt, was necessary to show

that they were competent and reliable. As one architect said, ‘if, in fact,

something happens that you didn’t think of, at least you can say, “Well, we

did something with the best intentions at the time.”’ He noted that all

aspects of potential risk had to be covered for fear of litigious action: ‘But if

you’ve done no designers’ risk assessments and somebody falls off the top of

the building then they’ll say, “Well, you didn’t do a designers’ risk assess-

ment, you’re useless, we’re suing you”’.

Some see such threats as part of the escalation of the risk society and its

extended reach into all spheres of life. One architect outlined how, over the

years, the requirements relating to risk had changed from dealing with big

and obvious issues to those that seem trivial. As he said: ‘There’s a high

voltage cable across the site, there’s a big sewer, whatever it might be, there’s

a railway line next door. And the idea of it was there’s just a few particularly

dangerous issues relating to that job would be highlighted. What, of course,

has happened is you get inches of paper, about laying blocks, about

adhesives for floors, because everybody’s just covering their arse and they’re

not seeing the wood for the trees.’ Similar reactions were conveyed by

others, with another architect noting that: ‘so when someone’s done a risk

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assessment, they have decided that . . . any ceiling that’s over, let’s say two

and a half metres, we can’t change off a ladder, we require a scaffold

platform, because it’s a more stable base.’

The presence of risk and its regulation reflects a design and construction

culture in which trust is weakly developed and even absent. The prolifera-

tion of risk-related activity is symptomatic of a sector that is not working

well, and its operations are contrary to what John Egan (1998) called for in

relation to constructive change in the design and development professions.

A diminution in risk-related activities requires, in part, a transformation in

the social and organisational relations of design and construction that

include, we would argue, possession of, and access to, much more infor-

mation held by different parties within project teams, as part of a process to

encourage mutual sharing, and a breakdown of adversarial and ‘self-

interested’ operations. It is our contention that the actions of architects,

and other professionals, cannot advance beyond the risk culture if some of

the structural inequalities within the design and development process

persist.

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