{"id":678809,"date":"2026-07-07T16:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678809\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:30:09","slug":"architecture-firm-on-trial-after-man-killed-by-falling-pane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678809\/","title":{"rendered":"Architecture firm on trial after man killed by falling pane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Prosecuting, Gordon Menzies said: &#8220;Originally these windows had been designed to open inwards, an approach that the pros say is safe and simple \u2013 however the design was changed from inward opening to outward opening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The prosecution&#8217;s case is that the final design of these windows was not safe, and because of the design there was a serious risk that a gust of wind could prise them off their hinges.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The design meant that the outward facing windows were held in place by a single metal &#8220;restrictor&#8221; attached to the window, the court heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It had no effective failsafe, no reliable backup, there were many things that could go wrong with the restrictors and if they did, consequences could be catastrophic,&#8221; said Menzies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Menzies said Foster + Partners and St James Group Ltd were likely to disagree about who made the decision to have outward facing windows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jurors were told that after the first window panel fell from the building and &#8220;miraculously no-one was killed or injured&#8221; on 18 August 2017, the developers failed to use the incident as a reason to &#8220;go back to the drawing board&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecuting, Gordon Menzies said: &#8220;Originally these windows had been designed to open inwards, an approach that the pros&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-678809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}