VENTILATION ducts which allowed the first Glasgow School of Art fire to spread were still in place when a second blaze broke out this year, MSPs have heard.
The ducts were being used to run cables and pipes through the Mackintosh building during its reconstruction, and were due to be fire-stopped at the end of the project, according to the architects.
The world-renowned art school was extensively damaged in June. It was undergoing a £35 million restoration after the previous fire in May 2014. Representatives from Page\Park Architects, who were leading the project, and main contractor Kier appeared before the Scottish Parliament’s Culture Committee. It has been taking evidence on the circumstances surrounding the second blaze.
A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service report on the 2014 blaze found that old ventilation ducts assisted its spread from a basement studio into neighbouring rooms and upwards through the building.
Convener Joan McAlpine asked: “We know about these ducts, how dangerous they were. Did you take immediate measures to ensure that that issue with the ducts was dealt with at an early stage in the construction project?”
Page\Park director David Page said: “It still remained a conservation project, so these ducts were being used for pipe work and for cables, and at the time of the fire, all of that installation was ongoing.”
He added: “There was a significant process put in place to protect the building at that point.”
Kier Scotland managing director Brian McQuade said: “It was part of the construction process that [the ducts] had to be open. We could not put the wires and the steelwork pipes for the final system in without them.”
McAlpine also raised the findings of an inquiry into a leisure centre built by Kier in Dumfries, published in April 2018. She asked Page/Park head of design review David Paton if the report was raised with Kier in the context of the art school work. He replied: “As far as I am concerned that was irrelevant to this contract.”
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