Grenfell Tower

Last updated

Grenfell Tower
Grenfell Tower, London in 2009.jpg
The tower in 2009 before the renovation
Kensington and Chelsea London UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Grenfell Tower
Location within Kensington and Chelsea borough
Greater London UK location map 2.svg
Red pog.svg
Grenfell Tower
Location within Greater London
Former namesLancaster Tower
General information
StatusAwaiting demolition
Location London, W11
United Kingdom
Construction started1972
Completed1974
Renovated2016
Destroyed2017 Grenfell Tower fire
Renovation cost£10 million
Owner Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council
Landlord Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation
Height67.3 m (220 ft 10 in)
Technical details
Floor count24
Design and construction
Architecture firmClifford Wearden and Associates
Main contractorA E Symes
Renovating team
Architect(s)Studio E Architects
Renovating firm
Main contractor

Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. [1] Most of the tower was destroyed in a severe fire on 14 June 2017.

Contents

The building's top 20 storeys consisted of 120 flats, with six per floor – two flats with one bedroom each and four flats with two bedrooms each – with a total of 200 bedrooms. Its first four storeys were non-residential until its most recent refurbishment, from 2015 to 2016, when two of them were converted to residential use, bringing it up to 127 flats and 227 bedrooms; six of the new flats had four bedrooms each and one flat had three bedrooms. It also received new windows and new cladding with thermal insulation during this refurbishment. [2]

The fire gutted the building and killed 72 people, including a stillbirth. [3] In early 2018, it was announced that, following demolition of the tower, the site will be replaced by a memorial to those killed in the fire. [4]

As of December 2022, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has said that no firm plans exist for the tower, and that any decision will only be taken after community engagement.

Description

Map of the western side of the Lancaster West Estate Lancaster West Estate.svg
Map of the western side of the Lancaster West Estate

The 24-storey tower block was designed in 1967 in the Brutalist style of the era by Clifford Wearden and Associates, with the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council approving its construction in 1970, as part of phase one of the Lancaster West redevelopment project. [5] [6]

The 67.3 m (221 ft) tall building contained 120 one- and two-bedroom flats (six dwellings per floor on 20 of the 24 storeys with the bottom four, the podium, being used for non-residential purposes). The floors were named ground, mezzanine, walkway and walkway+1, floor 1, floor 2 etc. [2] It housed up to 600 people. [7]

The tower was built to the Parker Morris standards. Each floor was 22 by 22 m (72 by 72 feet), giving an approximate usable area of 476 m2 (5,120 square feet). The layout of each floor was designed to be flexible as none of the partition walls were structural. The residential floors contained a two bedroom flat at each corner, in between which on the east and the west face was a one bedroomed flat. The core contained a stair column and the lift and service shafts. [8] One-bedroom flats were 51.4 m2 (553 square feet) in area and two-bedroom flats were 75.5 m2 (813 square feet). [7]

The building was innovative, as most LCC tower blocks used traditional brick work for infill whereas here precast insulated concrete blocks were used, giving the walls an unusual texture. The ten exterior concrete columns were also unusual. [9] In addition, other tower blocks of this era had four flats per storey, rather than six. [8]

The original lead architect for the building, Nigel Whitbread, said in 2016 in an interview with Constantine Gras, which was later partially repeated in The Guardian , [10] that the tower had been designed with attention to strength, unlike the collapsed Ronan Point tower of the same period, "and from what I can see could last another 100 years." He described it as a "very simple and straightforward concept. You have a central core containing the lift, staircase and the vertical risers for the services and then you have external perimeter columns. The services are connected to the central boiler and pump which powered the whole development and this is located in the basement of the tower block. This basement is approximately four metres deep [14'] and in addition has two metres [7'] of concrete at its base. This foundation holds up the tower block and in situ concrete columns and slabs and pre-cast beams all tie the building together". [8]

History

Construction, by contractors A E Symes, of Leyton, London, commenced in 1972, with the building being completed in 1974. Before construction, the plans at basement level were changed from the original brief to accommodate the need for extra car-parking. In the early 1990s, access to the building was restricted through the use of key fobs, and lift access to the first four storeys was discontinued. The building was renovated in 2015–16. [11]

When the building opened in 1974, it was nicknamed the 'Moroccan Tower' because many tenants came from the local Moroccan immigrant community. [12] In recent years, some residents had become leaseholders, mostly under the Right to Buy scheme; 14 flats in the tower, and three in Grenfell Walk, were leaseholder owned at the time of the 2017 fire. [13]

The tower was named after Grenfell Road, which ran to the south of the building; the road itself was named after Field Marshal Francis Grenfell 1st Baron Grenfell, a senior British Army officer. [14]

Renovation

The renovation was part of a project to utilise the area around Lancaster Green. [15] The new Kensington Leisure Centre had already been built to the east of the green, and the all-weather football pitches to the north of the tower were destined to become Kensington Academy. The renovation aimed to replace the substandard heating system, replace the windows, increase the thermal efficiency of the tower and improve appearance of the tower in the style of the academy. [11]

It aimed to reconfigure the podium levels in order to use the space more efficiently. The nursery would move from 244 m2 (2,630 sq ft) on the mezzanine floor to 206 m2 (2,220 sq ft) on the ground floor with immediate access to outside play space. The mezzanine floor would be continued across the full width of the building making space for three four-bedroom, 101.5 m2 (1,093 sq ft) six-person flats. The Dale Youth boxing club gained almost 100 m2 (1,100 sq ft) extra space by moving from the ground floor to the walkway level (190 m2 (2,000 sq ft) to 287 m2 (3,090 sq ft)). Walkway + 1 level would be converted from offices, to four new four-bedroom, six-person flats. [11]

Plans by Studio E Architects for renovation of the tower were publicised in 2012. The £8.7 million refurbishment, undertaken by Rydon Ltd, of Forest Row, East Sussex in conjunction with Artelia for contract administration and Max Fordham as specialist mechanical and electrical consultants, was completed in 2016. As part of the project, in 2015–2016, the concrete structure received new windows and new aluminium composite rainscreen cladding, in part to improve the appearance of the building. [11]

Two types were used: Arconic's Reynobond PE, which consists of two coil-coated aluminium sheets that are fusion bonded to both sides of a polyethylene core; and Reynolux aluminium sheets. Beneath these, and fixed to the outside of the walls of the flats, was Celotex RS5000 polyisocyanurate (PIR) thermal insulation. The work was carried out by Harley Facades of Crowborough, East Sussex, at a cost of £2.6 million. [16]

Fire

The fire burning at 04:43 on 14 June, four hours after it started Grenfell Tower fire (wider view).jpg
The fire burning at 04:43 on 14 June, four hours after it started

A fire broke out on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 of Grenfell's residents. [17] Emergency services received the first report of the fire at 00:54 local time. It burned for around 24 hours. [18] Initially, hundreds of firefighters and 45 fire engines were involved in efforts to control the fire, with many firefighters continuing to attempt to control pockets of fire on the higher floors after most of the rest of the building had been gutted. Residents of surrounding buildings were evacuated due to concerns that the tower could collapse, though the building was later determined to be structurally sound. [19]

Fate

The charred remains of the building, June 2017 Grenfell Tower remains.jpg
The charred remains of the building, June 2017
The tower in May 2018, partially covered in scaffolding and protective wrap Grenfell Tower in May 2018 08.jpg
The tower in May 2018, partially covered in scaffolding and protective wrap

After the fire, the exterior was covered in a protective wrap to assist the outstanding forensic investigations. [20] The Government, the Kensington and Chelsea Council, and the Grenfell United survivors' group, have agreed that at the conclusion of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry the demolished tower will be replaced by a memorial to the victims. [21] The government has voiced its intention to allow the survivors to "...guide the way future decisions are made" about the tower site and memorial. By May 2021, demolition of the tower was not expected to begin until June 2022 at the earliest. [22] However, as of December 2022, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has said that no firm plans exist for the tower, and that any decision will only be taken after further community engagement. [23] The Grenfell Next of Kin group has proposed turning the tower into a green wall vertical garden as a memorial to the victims. [24]

Architect

Nigel Whitbread was the lead architect for the Grenfell Tower. [25] In an interview with Constantine Gras, quoted in The Guardian , he said that "he was born in Kenton, his parents had a grocer's shop on St Helen's Gardens, North Kensington. He was educated at Sloane Grammar school and then got a position with the architects Douglas Stephen and Partners, who, though small, were applying the principles of Le Corbusier and the modernists." [25] He worked alongside Kenneth Frampton who was the Technical Editor of the journal Architectural Design ; and Elia Zenghelis and Bob Maxwell. He moved to work for Clifford Wearden after the basic plan for Lancaster West Estate had been established. He later worked for 30 years until his retirement at Aukett Associates. [26] Around 2016, he became involved with the local residents association drawing up the St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Plan. [27] [28]

Grenfell Action Group

A residents' organisation, Grenfell Action Group (GAG), published a blog in which it highlighted major safety problems. In the four years preceding the fire, they published 10 warnings criticising fire safety and maintenance practices at Grenfell Tower. [29]

Prior to a fire, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and central UK government bodies "knew, or ought to have known", that their management of the tower was breaching the rights to life, and to adequate housing, of the tower's residents, according to an enquiry by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published in 2019. [32]

In 2020, survivors of the fire stated that "nothing has changed" three years later and expressed feelings of being "left behind" and "disgusted" by a lack of progress in making similar buildings safe. [33]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trellick Tower</span> Tower block in the Brutalist style in Kensal Town, London

Trellick Tower is a Grade II* listed tower block on the Cheltenham Estate in North Kensington, London. Opened in 1972, it was commissioned by the Greater London Council and designed in the Brutalist style by architect Ernő Goldfinger. The tower was planned to replace outdated social accommodation, and designed as an improvement on Goldfinger's earlier Balfron Tower in East London. It was the last major project he worked on, and featured various space-saving designs, along with a separate access tower containing a plant room.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronan Point</span> Tower block which partly collapsed

Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire corner of the building; four people died and 17 were injured. The nature of the failure led to a loss of public confidence in high-rise residential buildings, and major changes in British building regulations resulted.

The Lakanal House fire occurred in a tower block on 3 July 2009 in Camberwell, London. Six people were killed, and at least twenty injured, when a high-rise fire, caused by a faulty television set, developed and spread through a number of flats in the twelve-storey building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council</span> Local authority in London

Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council, also known as Kensington and Chelsea Council, is the local authority for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under Conservative majority control since its creation in 1965. It is based at Kensington Town Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kensington and Chelsea TMO</span> Tenant management company in London

Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO) was the largest tenant management organisation (TMO) in England, managing nearly 10,000 properties on behalf of Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council – the entire council housing stock in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kensington Aldridge Academy</span> Academy in London, England

Kensington Aldridge Academy (KAA) is an 11–18 co-educational secondary school with academy status in the North Kensington area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in London, England. KAA opened in September 2014, and was officially opened by Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge in January 2015. The Academy's sixth form opened in September 2016. The school specialisms are Entrepreneurship and Creative & Performing Arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grenfell Tower fire</span> 2017 fire in West London

On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. Seventy people died at the scene, and two people died later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the German Bombings of World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lancaster West Estate</span> Housing estate in North Kensington, London

Lancaster Road (West) Estate is a housing estate in North Kensington, west London.

Samuel Webb was a British architect who was famous for his work on the structural and fire safety of Tower Blocks following his investigation into the Ronan Point tower block.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tower blocks in Great Britain</span> High-rise buildings for residential use

Tower blocks are high-rise buildings for residential use. These blocks began to be built in Great Britain after the Second World War. The first residential tower block, "The Lawn", was constructed in Harlow, Essex, in 1951; it is now a Grade II listed building. In many cases, tower blocks were seen as a "quick-fix" to cure problems caused by the existence of crumbling and unsanitary 19th-century dwellings or to replace buildings destroyed by German aerial bombing. It was argued that towers surrounded by public open space could provide for the same population density as the terraced housing and small private gardens they replaced, offering larger rooms and improved views, whilst being cheaper to build.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harrow Court fire</span>

The Harrow Court fire occurred in a tower block on 2 February 2005 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England. Three people were killed, two of them firefighters, when a fire developed and spread from the 14th floor. An investigation of the fire found that there was an Abnormal Rapid Fire Development, caused by a candle melting the surface of a television, which then spread rapidly up the outside of the building to subsequent floors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chalcots Estate</span> Housing estate in the London Borough of Camden

Chalcots Estate is a council housing estate on Adelaide Road and Fellows Road in Swiss Cottage in the London Borough of Camden. It was designed by Dennis Lennon and Partners. The Chalcots Estate was built on land owned by Eton College, which is reflected in the names of the individual buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rydon</span> British construction company

Rydon is a British facilities management and property maintenance company which was founded in 1978. Its head office is in Dartford, Kent, and it has two maintenance offices in London. It had a turnover of around £51.9 million and employed an average of 423 people in the year to September 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grenfell Tower Inquiry</span> Public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ledbury Estate</span> Housing estate in Peckham, London

The Ledbury Estate is a large estate of social housing, in Peckham in the London Borough of Southwark. The estate is just south of the Old Kent Road, part of the A2 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from both Tower Bridge and the Elephant & Castle it is adjacent to land used by George Livesey for the South London Gasworks.

Grenfell United is a pressure group made up of the families of victims and survivors of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire. The first formal meeting of Grenfell United took place on Saturday 24 June 2017. The minutes read: “Residents are not present as individuals. They must organise and they must establish a structure.” They had been convened by Father McTernan, a local Irish priest, who had worked for decades in conflict resolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire</span> Series of events following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017

On 14 June 2017, the Grenfell Tower fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST; it caused 72 deaths, including those of two victims who later died in hospital. More than 70 others were injured and 223 people escaped. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Second World War.

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire</span> Criticism of the response to a 2017 fire in West London

Criticism of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire primarily consisted of condemnation of issues with the emergency response and fire safety regulation practices in the UK at the time. Broader political criticism was also directed at British society, including condemnation of the response by governmental bodies and UK politicians, social divisions, deregulation issues, and poor transparency overall.

References

  1. ↑ The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. "Grenfell Tower". rbkc.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 14 June 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  2. 1 2 Grenfell Tower regeneration Project Archived 17 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ "UPDATE: Number of victims of the Grenfell Tower fire formally identified is 70". Metropolitan Police. 16 November 2017. Archived from the original on 19 November 2017. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  4. ↑ "Grenfell Tower site to be turned into memorial". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
  5. ↑ "Category: Lancaster West Estate". Constantine Gras. self. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
  6. ↑ Boughton, John (26 July 2017). "A perfect storm of disadvantage: the history of Grenfell Tower – The i newspaper online iNews". iNews, inews.co.uk. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 "Grenfell Tower floorplan shows how 120 flats were packed into highrise". The Telegraph . 14 June 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 Whitbread, Nigel. "Lancaster West Estate: An Ideal For Living?". Constantine Gras. Archived from the original on 15 June 2017. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
  9. ↑ Marsden, Harriet (25 June 2017). "Grenfell Tower's unusual design 'contributed to speed of fire'". The Independent .
  10. ↑ Siddique, Nicola Slawson (now) Haroon; Weaver, Matthew; Watt, Holly (17 June 2017). "Protesters march as anger mounts over Grenfell Tower response – as it happened". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Studio E (October 2012). "Grenfell Tower Regeneration Project-Design and Access Statement" (PDF). Rbkc.gov.uk. p. 24. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  12. ↑ Graham-Harrison, Emma (8 July 2017). "Grenfell fire: 'The community is close knit – they need to stay here to recover'". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
  13. ↑ Turner, Camilla (10 July 2017). "Victims of Grenfell Tower inferno who bought their homes say authorities have abandoned them". The Telegraph. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
  14. ↑ Danewid, Ida (2020). "The fire this time: Grenfell, racial capitalism and the urbanisation of empire". European Journal of International Relations. p. 297.
  15. ↑ "History – From Core Strategy to Kensington Academy". Grenfell Action Group. 24 June 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  16. ↑ Davies, Rob (26 June 2017). "Grenfell Tower: cladding material linked to fire pulled from sale worldwide". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 26 June 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
  17. ↑ Davies, Caroline; Slawson, Nicola (18 June 2017). "Grenfell Tower fire: Police say at least 58 missing as No 10 says each family to get £5,500 – live updates". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  18. ↑ Bentham, Martin (15 June 2017). "London fire: Grenfell Tower death toll reaches 17 as fire chief says 'no more survivors'". Evening Standard. London. Archived from the original on 15 June 2017. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  19. ↑ "Sky News – Live". Sky News . Sky UK. Archived from the original on 14 June 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2017– via YouTube.
  20. ↑ "Work to start on covering Grenfell Tower". BBC. 27 July 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
  21. ↑ Pasha-Robinson, Lucy (1 March 2018). "Grenfell Tower survivors told they can transform charred block into memorial of their choice". The Independent. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  22. ↑ Duffy, Nick (11 May 2021). "Government to consider 'if and when' to pull down Grenfell Tower for safety". i . Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  23. ↑ "Grenfell Tower site update: summary of community online meeting" (PDF). Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. 6 December 2022. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
  24. ↑ Brown, David. "Grenfell Tower father wants to turn ruins into a high-rise garden". The Times. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
  25. 1 2 Siddique, Nicola Slawson (now) Haroon; Weaver, Matthew; Makin, Bonnie; Watt, Holly (17 June 2017). "Protesters march as anger mounts over Grenfell Tower response – as it happened". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  26. ↑ "Nigel James Whitbread, former director at Aukett Swanke Limited, London". Checkdirector.co.uk. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  27. ↑ "Committee". stqw.org. St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Forum. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  28. ↑ Gras, Constantine (3 June 2016). "Lancaster West Estate - An Ideal For Living?". Constantine Gras. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  29. ↑ "Grenfell Tower Fire". 14 June 2017. Archived from the original on 14 June 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  30. ↑ "Fire Department Risk Assessment". What Go. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
  31. ↑ "KCTMO – Playing with fire!". 20 November 2016. Archived from the original on 14 June 2017.
  32. ↑ Booth, Robert (13 March 2019). "Grenfell residents' rights were breached – equalities watchdog". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  33. ↑ "Grenfell Tower: Survivors say 'nothing has changed'". BBC News. 14 June 2020.

51°30′50″N0°12′57″W / 51.5140°N 0.2158°W / 51.5140; -0.2158

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.