Waugh Thistleton Architects is set to fight a High Court trial in January as former client Vitsoe seeks £4 million in damages relating to a rotted timber roof. The practice worked as delivery architect for a factory-and-office complex in Leamington Spa from 2016. Now its former client, furniture-maker Vitsœ, blames the architect for rotted cross-laminated timber roof panels, which needed replacing. Vitsœ alleges that Waugh Thistleton breached its contract by failing to ensure that the roof panels did not contain excessive moisture when they were sealed in by a vapour control layer. The manufacturer is seeking to recoup more than £4m it has spent on mending its roof… …Waugh Thistleton denies the allegations, saying that any issues with over-moist timber which led to rot ‘were not the responsibility of the defendant or attributable to any breach of contract or duty on the part of the defendant’.