Lord Foster’s architecture firm Foster + Partners has lost a lawsuit brought by a property developer over a luxury airport hotel that was never built.
Riva Property commissioned Foster + Partners to design a hotel and conference centre near Heathrow Airport. The project was approved by the mayor of London in 2009, but was never built because, the developer claimed, the design that the architect came up with would have cost more than double the original building budget.
Riva, a company controlled by businessman John Dhanoa, is suing Foster + Partners for breach of contract claiming for loss of profit and wasted professional fees.
In a ruling today at the Technology & Construction Court in London, judge Justice Fraser backed Riva’s argument. He said Foster + Partners must pay the claimant £3,604,694.39
If the hotel had been built, it would have been the first five-star hotel within the vicinity of Heathrow Airport, according to a 2009 press release on Foster + Partners’ website.
“The hotel, developed by Riva Properties is characterised by a distinctive layered glass shell, which floods the public spaces with daylight and contributes to a highly efficient energy strategy,” the release said.
The architect had planned to sink seven of the the 14 floors underground, so the building would not be significantly taller than others in the area.
“The rooms are contained within six pavilions, linked by bridges and wrapped in a unifying glass envelope, which acts as a barrier to aircraft noise. The entrance lobby has a floating glass deck with views down to the sunken restaurant level, shallow pool and waterfall,” the release said.
According to today’s judgment, when Foster + Partners was hired to work on the project in 2007, Riva stipulated that the budget for the project was £70m. But when Foster + Partners produced its design, it was independently costed at £195m.
Riva said that it increased its budget to £100m when Foster + Partners told it the cost could be “value engineered” down and advised Riva to apply for planning permission.
However, Riva was unable to find the funding for the building, and was also unable to “value engineer” its cost to fit the budget, so it abandoned the project having wasted, it said, £4m in fees to the architect and other professional advisers.
According to the judgment, Foster + Partners claimed that there was not a budget.
The judge, however, disagreed. He said that architects should “establish whether there was a budget or not at an early stage, as that is the only way that all of the key requirements and constraints could have been identified”.
Foster + Partners was, he said, also at fault for advising that that the cost could be engineered down to £100m when it was “blindingly obvious” that it could not be.
“This case serves as a warning to designers that they cannot design in a vacuum,” said Stephen Homer of law firm Ashfords, which acted for Riva and Dhanoa in the case.
“Cost and budget is a key constraint and should always be identified and considered when designing any project, even when the provision of cost advice is expressly excluded from the designer’s obligations.”
At today’s judgment hearing, lawyers representing Foster + Partners said their client had not yet decided whether it intended to appeal the ruling.
