All Features articles – Page 483
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Features
Precious heat
Up until now, housebuilders have responded to demands that they improve the energy efficiency of new homes by simply adding insulation. Next year, they are going to have to do much more …
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Features
Expert eye
What are developers cooking up in kitchens? James Pilling, senior designer at interior specialist Connections in Design, looks at the growing importance of kitchen design and its relationship with modern lifestyle
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FeaturesSpecialist costs: Concrete frames
In the first of our specialist market overviews, Ian Purton of Gardiner & Theobald looks at the concrete sector’s lead times and costs
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Features
New-build completions
The housebuilding industry has been hard at work over the summer, maintaining steady completion levels, but daily sales dipped in June and July. Thank heavens they picked up in August. Maybe the downturn won’t happen after all …
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FeaturesMillau Viaduct: C’est magnifique!
Foster and Partners’ Viaduc de Millau in southern France is the highest, longest cable-stayed bridge in the world, and it opens in December. We admire the view, talks to the engineer and meets some enthusiastic locals.
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Features
Buyer demand
SmartNewHomes reports that London bore the brunt of the summer slowdown with a fall in demand of 8.5%. That figure almost exactly matches the rise that Wales enjoyed. Meanwhile urban exiles continue to flock to the South-west
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FeaturesThe burning of the bodies
Construction’s institutions may have been dealt a deadly blow last week, when they were attacked as isolationist and threatened with merger plans. We report on how reforms could spell the end of professional bodies as we know them
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Features
Planning approvals
Approvals have grown significantly in London and East Anglia over the summer. In Wales, however, there is little evidence planners are responding to warnings of undersupply
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Features
£300m hospital takes Bovis to the top of August league
After a quiet July, Bovis Lend Lease climbs 29 places – and stays well ahead in the annual contractor charts
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FeaturesLafarge’s African mercy run
Charity ship bound for Africa will carry 48-tonnes of cement donated by Lafarge and builders merchant Ridgeons.
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FeaturesKew for a song
Ted Cullinan celebrated a hat trick of gardening jobs by visiting Kew and writing a ditty in honour of partner Robin Nicholson.
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Features
Specifier Products
The latest ideas for adding the final flourish to a building, from sun-shading aluminium louvres to spectacular coloured glass interlayers. Plus, the connectors, cramps and beams that hold it all together
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FeaturesSeven steps to curtain walling heaven
Malcolm Dobson, technical director of Technal, gives his tips on what to look out for on site to ensure the perfect curtain walling installation
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Features
Slow but sure
In this month’s Tracker, Experian Business Strategies reports that growth in the industry is expected to continue over the next three months, albeit at a slower rate than before
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FeaturesRoofs: Powersharing
The roofing industry is being crowbarred away from its traditions by a mixture of government regulation and market imperatives. Luckily, this process is being helped by an evolutionary leap in materials technology …
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