All Features articles – Page 517
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Features
Cost update: August 2003
We make our quarterly inspection of inflation in the industry, and find that it's chugging along at the 1-2% mark – but there is a 23% wage rise for craftsmen in the pipeline and the cost of some works packages are rising rapidly. Hot Rates focuses on claddings and coverings
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Features
Local lowdown
Robert Smith of Hays Montrose continues his series on regional job markets with a report on the Shangri-la that is the Thames Valley
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FeaturesHitsville, UK
Shoppers brousing the vitrines of High Street Kensington, west London, now have the additional diversion of peering into the jazzy new headquarters of EMI.
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Features
Tender price forecast: Varied prospects
London is feeling the pinch as the office market dries up, but prospects are good in many of the regions. The first quarter’s decline in output does not spell doom and gloom, but housebuilders and the public sector will hold the purse strings
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FeaturesDude, where are the waves?
QS David Weight has spent 10 years struggling to convince councils that his artificial reefs would make Britain the wave centre of Europe. Now it looks like he's about to get his big break. We paddled out to talk to him …
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FeaturesComeback kid?
Down Kenneth Clarke may be, out he certainly isn't. The man who claims to have invented PFI is on bullish form and ready to take on contractors, civil servants, bankers – oh, and the Labour government, of course, for messing up his big idea.
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FeaturesAll you need, all the time
Imagine project data, emails and the company file server at your fingertips, whether on site or on the move. Then again, why waste time imagining: wireless technology is here and it’s about to do to data exchange what the mobile did to voice communication.
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FeaturesTV Reviews
Building's critic-in-residence reviews a typical week's assortment of built environment programming
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FeaturesPoor old you
More and more firms are reacting to deficits in their pension funds by, in effect, slashing their staff's retirement income. They say they are staving off financial disaster; others claim it is a grotesque rip-off. We investigate a deepening crisis.
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FeaturesWhy are we so fascinating?
Prime time slots are crowded with foppish designers, avuncular engineers, opinionated architects and diabolical builders. We find out what the attraction is, what the programmes are like, how they've changed the perception of building – and how you, too, can get your phizog on the box.
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FeaturesRichard and judy's favourite engineer
John Roberts is operating board director of engineer Babtie Group and a media tart.
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FeaturesDavid Pretty
Barratt is Britain's best known housebuilder – but not always for the right reasons. Here its new chief executive tells us how he intends to preserve the firm's legacy, and silence some of its critics.
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Features
Building market muscles
Effective marketing is a critical way of growing any business, and the building industry is no exception
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FeaturesIf I were in your boots
Continuing our occasional series, Andrew Gay, former boss of M&E contractor Drake & Scull, is impressed by Kier's risk-free strategies, dependable reputation and great results. Sound like an 'if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it' business model? No way – here's how to make it even better and a whole lot more dynamic …