Architects in the dock over baby death
January 19 2010
Toddler Ben McCreath fell to his death after squeezing through a 15cm gap in the glass balcony of his mother’s workplace in Edinburgh’s Princes Exchange on Valentines Day 2006.
Defending their workmanship Kvaerner claimed they had merely followed the plans handed to them by PJMP architects.
Project manager for the scheme, Angus McInnes, stated: “In hindsight the gap is certainly big – but the components are all fitted as they were intended.
“You have to rely on the architect. We employed them as a specialist to do the work on our behalf.”
These plans were criticised by Sheriff Mhairi as a “model of imprecision” after architect Mark McPhillips admitted he “couldn’t remember” why he increased the gap in the balcony from 10cm to 15cm.
Though legal at the time Scottish building standards laws have since been updated to ensure a maximum permissible gap of 10cm on all balconies and staircases.
Edinburgh City Council claim no retrospective action can be taken against older buildings which do not comply with the new rules.
3 Comments
#1 Posted by R. on 21 Jan 2010 at 06:31 AM
Very unfortunate and horrible, but still far to P.C, design and beauty have given way to Nanny state laws, that will govern the way we even draw breath one day.
#2 Posted by R. on 21 Jan 2010 at 06:34 AM
What is the baby doing un-attended on the floor, and in the work place, convict the mother not the Architects.
#3 Posted by Noah Murney on 21 Jan 2010 at 21:06 PM
As an architect and as a human being I am profoundly shocked and disgusted by the previous 2 comments. In addition to a complete lack of humanity, 'R' demonstrates complete ignorance of the fact that the 100mm-maximum balustrade gap has been in force in the Scottish Building Standards for at least 25 years, for reasons which should be only too obvious. If this article is correct then clearly there was a defect in the architect's drawings, but it does raise a couple of questions - What about the fabrication drawings checking process? Did the contract not place responsibilities on the specialist fabricators to take reasonable steps to comply with the regulations? And why wasn't this detected or highlighted by Building Control on the warrant drawings or during construction or before the building was granted a completion certificate? My sincere sympathies are with the family. I also sincerely hope that this tragic event receives the high level of publicity it deserves in every architecture school, and that 'R' takes a minute to think before he posts comments like these again.
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