The Build Safety Act (BSA) received Royal Assent in 2022, a direct reaction to the tragic failures in building safety that led to the Grenfell Tower fire. From April this year, any new works fall under the new legislation. For the construction and design industry, this should give way not just to an overhaul in regulations, but a much broader cultural change in our approach towards building safety, the appointment of professional bodies, and how teams work together to own and manage the associated risks of complex projects, in a much more integrated way.

Prior to the introduction of the BSA, building safety had, in too many cases, become a secondary process that fell to third parties, and lacked in sufficient technical resolution and rigour. Once projects started on site, opportunities would open up for contractors to make decisions and take control of the design process. For my generation of practising architects, this meant that the architect’s role within the construction process had become underappreciated, and devalued.

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