What is an appropriate institutional response to climate change?

The cultural tension between architects and engineers is one of the things that makes construction tick. To generalise, architects, who exist in one institution, are expected to have a vision for the whole project while engineers, who exist in a multitude of institutions, are expected just to focus on making that vision work.

As with buildings so it is with climate change. For architects the requirement to have a vision logically extends to the whole planet and so they are comfortable about entering the policy arena and supporting one policy over another. Engineers, on the other hand, think to step outside their specific area of expertise and say anything is to risk reputational damage. Is this a fair characterisation and if it is, is climate change an issue that should break the mould.?

The debate took place on Waterloo Day, famous, amongst other things, for a clash on institutional thinking. Do we want architects to behave a bit more like engineers and/or engineers to behave a bit more like architects?

This debate was chaired by Dr Scott Steedman FREng, ICE Vice President and Director of Group Strategy High-Point Rendel.

Speaker 1: Mark Whitby

FREng, and ICE past President

Speaker 2: John Armstrong

FCIBSE, Independent FM Consultant CIBSE President

Speaker 3: Dr Sunand Prasad

Partner, Penoyre & Prasad and RIBA President Elect, Executive Director of Renaissance Bedford and formerly co-author of the Halcrow Report into the Unification of Consent Regimes [2004] commissioned by the ODPM

Control of building development has grown piecemeal over the centuries from the medieval Assize of Building of 1189 on. New elements and layers have been constantly added to the control regime in response to new concerns; they have rarely been taken away or the whole restructured.

There are now so many pieces of legislation and control functions carried out by separate bodies that any coherent overall decision making ability has long since disappeared and the system is largely impenetrable to insiders let alone outsiders. At a time when buildings are increasingly needed to perform holistically, has the time come to rethink and restructure this system?

Should the three separate planning, building regulation and health & safety control regimes be reorganised as a single system with a more coherent view of design development, working from strategy, through detail design, to implementation? Could it deliver better, safer and greener results?

The debate was chaired by Simon Foxell, member of the Edge. The outcome of this debate will feed into RIBA’s separate enquiry into Improving the Planning Process to be held in March 2007 as well the RTPI’s own policy process.

Paper 1 - Is there a case for restructuring? (PowerPoint)

Paul Everall CBE, Chief Executive of Local Authority Building Control and formerly the head of the Buildings (previously Building Regulations) Division in the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Paper 2 - Unifying Consent Regimes for Building Development (PowerPoint)

Chris Watts, Executive Director of Renaissance Bedford and formerly co-author of the Halcrow Report into the Unification of Consent Regimes [2004] commissioned by the ODPM

Notes from the debate

Event invite