The public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster has sacked its expert architectural witness after it emerged he was not a registered architect.

John Priestley, who was appointed on Wednesday to produce a report into the architectural design of the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, was sacked on Friday. [...]

According to the inquiry, before he was instructed, Priestley told officials he was a UK registered and chartered architect. — The Guardian

Something of an outsider architect, Fujimoto has never worked for another practice, which perhaps explains his firmly original approach. “I was scared of being rejected,” he says. “And if I had gone to work for another architect, they might have overpowered me because I was so easily influenced.” — The Guardian

The UK’s largest practice, Foster + Partners, says it would consider moving its headquarters from London if Brexit meant it could no longer attract the world’s best architects [...]

Less than a quarter of the architects based at Foster + Partners’ huge Battersea head office are UK nationals – with around a half from EU countries. In total, the firm employs 1,061 staff in the UK including 353 architects. — architectsjournal.co.uk

Selfridges department store in London has teamed up with Yorkshire Sculpture park on a new contemporary sculpture initiative. New works will be unveiled every six months on a marble and steel monolith designed by the UK architect David Chipperfield as part of his commission to create Selfridges’ new accessories hall. The joint project, known as the Art Block, has been dubbed Selfridges’ version of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. — The Art Newspaper

Nestled into an armpit of Westminster Abbey, hidden behind a flying buttress that leaps up to the chapterhouse, stands what appears to be a gothic space rocket. Sinuous bronze tracery loops its way up the faceted shaft, framing crystalline windows between bands of lead arrowheads, like go-faster stripes shooting towards the heavens. — The Guardian

The insulation that burned out of control on Grenfell Tower had never passed the required safety test and should never have been on the building, a BBC investigation has discovered. Panorama understands the manufacturer, Celotex, used extra fire retardant in the product that qualified for the safety certificate.

A more flammable version was then sold for public use, the programme believes. Celotex said it is co-operating with the police investigation and inquiry. — bbc.com

the facade of the recently opened Blue Mountain School is impossible to miss. The six-level brick townhouse, on the corner of Redchurch and Chance Streets, has been painted in a sleek and surprising silver. Inside, the multipurpose space defies easy categorization. — T Magazine

What if buying a house were more like buying a car? Could the process of choosing between a Ford, Volkswagen or Nissan ever translate into picking between an Adjaye, Rogers or Assemble? Beyond the dream of ever being able to buy a house, the prospect of commissioning an architect-designed home is an impossibly remote prospect for most of us, a luxury confined to the glossy pages of Sunday supplements and Grand Designs. — The Guardian

A Romanian man who used threats of violence and indebtedness to keep a group of his countrymen as slaves while he pocketed their wages from a London construction site has been sentenced to seven years in jail. — Global Construction Review

A homeowner in a housing complex in London with Grenfell-type cladding has been told the value of her £475,000 home has collapsed and is now just £50,000.

Galliard Homes, the developer of the 11-block complex in New Capital Quay in south-east London, is facing a £30m-£40m bill to replace the cladding and is locked in a legal dispute over who should pay. — The Guardian

And now he’s going to float a 150-tonne sculpture on a lake on London.

Is it an allegory of the west’s oil dependency, an indictment of how we’re polluting the planet, or both? Christo shakes his locks and smiles. “I have no reason to justify myself as an artist. I cannot explain my art. Everything I do professionally is irrational and useless.” This, he thinks, is exactly as it should be. “I make things that have no function – except maybe to make pleasure.” — The Guardian

The Smithsonian Institution has confirmed that it will work with the Victoria and Albert Museum to set up a joint gallery and exhibition programme in East London, on the former Olympic site. Yesterday (9 April) the Smithsonian’s regents (trustees) gave formal approval for their first base outside the US. — The Art Newspaper

Over the last few months, the team at Forensic Architecture, housed at London’s Goldsmiths University in Lewisham, has been working to piece together data and footage from the event using a mixture of video and imagery from Youtube, Periscope and other forms of social media, as well as footage from Sky News, which is a partner on the project. — Wired