Foster + Partners Cleared Over Fatal Corniche Window Fall

A 130-kilogram window fell from The Corniche tower in London in 2018 and killed a bus driver passing below. After a trial lasting five weeks, Foster + Partners was acquitted, while the project manager and the contractor were found guilty of failing to protect public safety. The verdict draws a line between the office that designed the building and the parties that delivered it.

That line follows how the work is actually split. A design office details how a facade element is fixed; a fabricator makes it; a contractor installs it; a project manager inspects. When a component falls, identifying which link failed is a legal question as much as a technical one, and five weeks in court indicates how hard it is to answer. The outcome is less reassuring for architects than it first appears. An acquittal does not place design outside liability, only outside this particular chain of failure. At 130 kilograms, the margin for error is zero.