In the ACT, residents in a new, high-profile high-rise apartment are woken every two hours or so during the night by a large banging sound. Have been for years. Structural deficiencies mean that the roof slab scrapes across support walls when it cools down at night. The resulting nocturnal crescendo has been the subject of prolonged court action and numerous expert reports. To borrow a phrase, design success has many parents, building defects are orphans.

Such stories are being lived throughout our apartment boom-burdened major cities by owners who suspected nothing when they bought. Culprits and scapegoats for these and other defects are sometimes found but root causes are rarely identified.

I am not a structural engineer but I work with architects, builders and structural engineers dealing with major facade and waterproofing defects. A forensic approach is needed to look at the process that leads to a defect, including the design stage, rather than just looking at the material issue in isolation.

A root cause common to many of these types of defects is the way design risk has been managed in

the building industry over the last decade or so. Key elements of structural and other design are passed though many hands before emerging triumphant on the skyline. Huge pressure is placed on the various designers by developers and builders to reduce time and cost. They are asked to deliver ever thinner, lighter structures which are quicker and cheaper to build. The margins for error are reduced. The long-term effects are discounted in favour of short-term financial gain.

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This does not necessarily apply to the Opal Tower, but is an observation of the industry at large.

This management approach has reached its zenith in the wide use of design-and-construct contracts to commission many high-rise projects. These contracts, which supply builders with the first half of the design (which builders then have to finish) are often the first stop for developers looking to reduce cost and time of a project. The builder then takes responsibly for the design, however inadequate, and has to meet the developer's budget and time restrictions, however inadequate, and manage further tweaking of key design elements by the developer to cut costs even more.

Correcting this process is at the heart of preventing major defects in the building industry today. It begins with recognising the role that developers, at the apex of the design process, play in influencing the design of these buildings and the sometimes negative outcomes that arise.

Ross Taylor is the managing director of Ross Taylor and Associates, waterproofing consultants.