Hansom: Intriguing

Snap, crackle and bang

In its relatively short lifespan, One Hyde Park has built up an impressive pedigree in the urban myth stakes. SAS doormen, panic rooms, bullet-proof windows, blood-splatter resistant carpets and secret escape routes to the hotel next door are some of the more colourful claims that have surrounded the luxury £1bn development. However, we can now exclusively reveal that all these stories are in fact - false. They have been strenuously denied by none other than the scheme’s architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. While it’s true that the practice could be merely trying to play down the paranoia of its fabulously wealthy clients, it’s also true that bullet-proof glass wouldn’t really be all that helpful if you were eating breakfast on your balcony.  

Now you’re talking

Until now, embossing has been the most impressive technology deployed on a construction industry business card. But be prepared to be blown away by a space-age generation of “augmented reality” cards planned by one particularly advanced QS, which is not quite ready to go public with the innovation. View the card through a computer-linked camera and up will pop the three-dimensional head of the contact you have met in “normal reality”. They will even tell you their name and position. The end result is apparently like talking to floating-headed computer Holly from Red Dwarf. Could “emerging markets” include the colonisation of the galaxy?

All his own work

One industry grandee has gone beyond the call of parental duty by stepping in to write a university essay for his son. The fortunate student had the benefit of an eager father, who “got carried away” and exceeded the word limit. Hansom was unable to determine what grade the construction figure’s efforts attained. Perhaps the studious person should consider revisiting his studies and sign up for a course as well.

Both sides, now

Even before the release of the long anticipated James review, the industry is pretending it always thought Building Schools of the Future was horribly inefficient all along, thinks Paul Morrell. Speaking at a panel on construction procurement, he said that “finding someone who thought BSF was a good idea is like trying to find a German who voted for Hitler.” Morrell was also at pains to point out that his drive for industry integration is not, repeat not, about taking “the Joni Mitchell approach of lighting a candle, holding hands and thinking everything will be fine”. He needn’t worry. I’m not sure there’s any danger of contractors resembling environmentalist Canadian songwriters any time soon.

What the blazes?

In December a mysterious fire destroyed the tour bus of rock band Kings of Leon, at the O2 arena in London, forcing a cancellation of their gig. Engineer Crofton has been tasked with finding out exactly what started the blaze. The imagination runs wild thinking of possible solutions to the conundrum. A pair of groupie’s knickers that spontaneously combusted? A forgotten spliff? A crème brûlée flambéeing experiment gone horribly wrong?