Assembling Imperceptibility: The Material, Financial and Policy Dimensions of Combustible Cladding in Residential High-Rise

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the predicament of owner-occupiers and small investors presently liable for the removal of combustible cladding on build-to-sell residential high-rise. We argue that while the proliferation of combustible materials has been shaped by cost-cutting and risk-shifting by construction firms, these practices did not on their own transfer the responsibility of remediation to consumers. Examining the attempts of one densifying nation, Australia, to locate responsibility for combustible cladding through two parliamentary inquiries, we analyse witness testimonies to show how public policies encouraged materials substitution, removed on-site inspection and protected corporations from litigation. Moving beyond neoliberalism, these policy reforms leveraged information asymmetries and the material complexity of residential high-rise to create a climate of “imperceptibility” towards unsafe materials. Together, material, financial and policy dimensions intersected to enable capital accumulation through the expansion of consumer harm in high-rise housing markets. We conclude that construction materials and processes are an overlooked, yet critical domain of governance in financialised housing regimes.

KEYWORDS:

• Financialisation
• high-rise
• housing
• combustibility
• materiality

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the three referees and journal editors for their insightful comments that have helped to focus this paper. We are also grateful for the feedback of participants on an early draft of this paper in the “Radical Verticality: Critical Explorations of High-Rise Urbanism” session, convened by Casper Ebbensgaard and Michal Murawski, at the Royal Geographical Society-Institution of British Geographers Conference in London, 2019.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The securitization of Australian Standards produces further disincentives for companies to access or apply standards. Floated in 2003 on the Australian Stock Exchange by Standards Australia, the resulting entity- SAI Global Limited- was purchased in 2016 by Baring Private Equity East Asia (Hong Kong) whose goal, according to the Safety Institute of Australia is “to maximise its profits for its private shareholders” (Clarke 2018). Johnston and Reid (2019) in their analysis of building defects in Australia, note interviewees from the construction sector were “bemused” that individual standards cost up to $300 for a 12 month licence, that while readily packaged into liquid revenue, provides a disincentive for the industry to use them.

2. Strata-title allows individuals and small investors to buy one or more apartments (condos) in a multi-owned building (Blandy, Dixon, and Dupais 2006; Easthope and Randolph 2016).

3. Generalized insurance of last resort was modified in Australia in 2003 such that buildings over three-storeys were exempt from home warranty insurance. As a result, “the insurance scheme that offers insurance of last resort if the builder is unable to rectify does not apply to apartment dwellings” (Webb in Public Accountability Committee 2019b, 13).