All Features articles – Page 564
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Features
Crackdown: Construction takes on the labour agencies
For years, dodgy labour agencies have been bringing illegal immigrants on site, avoiding tax and even terrorising the contractors they are supposed to be helping. Tom Broughton reports on an industry that has had enough – and is gearing up to fight back
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FeaturesA special relationship
Reebok was so set on making its flagship UK sports club the mirror image of its US chain that it insisted its fit-out contractor use American workers and materials. Cue much head scratching, jargon translation and getting used to strange building practices – like no tea breaks … Thomas Lane ...
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FeaturesMichael meacher
The minister has a few modest targets for you to meet: like eliminating carbon dioxide emissions, beating the Germans, making Part L even tougher, rescuing pandas, preventing floods – and saving the world … Matthew Richards finds out more.
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FeaturesLiquid sky
This raised, glass-bottomed lake is the centrepiece of a city park in Japan, and will cast a flickering light to soothe visiting nine-to-fivers below
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FeaturesGreen Haus
The headquarters of the Norddeutsche Landesbank in Hanover is a startling building in a boring city. But, says Marcus Fairs, the one thing it isn't shouting about – its green technology – is its most impressive feature.
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FeaturesOn easy street
This year's Hays Montrose/Building executive salary guide reveals that top professionals have manoeuvred out of last year's salary cul-de-sac onto streets paved with gold.
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FeaturesDangerous visions
Three years ago, Amey reinvented itself as a support services firm. This was hailed as a visionary move, and many in the industry scrambled to follow suit. Now that it is in desperate straits, the question arises: was the idea flawed, or just the way Amey went about it?
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Features
Brushing up
David Hill, managing director of building services engineer Hills Electrical & Mechanical, takes Building through his experience of gaining a CSCS card
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FeaturesCost model: 21st-century university building
The government wants 50% of 18-30-year-olds to be educated to degree level by 2010, and expects universities to compete in international research markets. So what buildings are required to help meet these objectives? In its latest cost model, Davis Langdon & Everest examines the 21st-century university building
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FeaturesUp and walking
Opened three years ago in north-west London, the Ambulatory Care and Diagnostic Centre was hailed as a revolutionary healthcare concept: a walk-through day hospital run like a production line. Martin Spring returned and found the stunning building easily adapting to rapid changes in medical practice. Shame it's only working at ...
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Features
Running to stand still
In last year's Hays Montrose/Building contractors salaries guide, we predicted an industry-wide downturn – and our 2002 survey shows this is exactly what happened. Now, professionals' pay rises are often cancelled out by inflation so salaries are going nowhere, says Victoria Madine.
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FeaturesOh well played
Bryant Priest Newman has replaced our hallowed tradition of lumpen sports design with an elegant, stylish and surprisingly cheap structure.
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Features
Local lowdown
Robert Smith of recruitment consultant Hays Montrose continues his series on regional job markets with a look at the hyperactive north-west of England
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FeaturesYoung man in a hurry
The dynamic new head of English Heritage is out to blow the dust off the conservation quango. Martin Spring meets charismatic super-curator Simon Thurley.
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Features
The heat of the moment
In this month's Tracker, Construction Forecasting and Research reveals that activity levels across the construction industry heated up in August, although the outlook remains rather more lukewarm
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Features
Fire protection
How well structural steelwork is protected against fire can mean the difference between life and death. Peter Fordham, cost research associate at Davis Langdon & Everest, outlines the three main types of fire protection, along with their pros and cons
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Features
Fire door hardware
Control over the supply and installation of fire doors has, in the past, been haphazard and therefore dangerous. Graham Hulland, product marketing manager for Dorma Door Controls, explains how you can avoid the pitfalls
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FeaturesDoctors and purses
When the contractor building a hospital in Leeds decided on a new structural support system, the cost of the fire protection threatened to spiral. But, writes Alex Smith, a computerised fire-analysis tool took the heat off the specifications team and left the client with money to burn
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FeaturesGood, bad and just plain ugly
At next week's urban summit, deputy prime minister John Prescott will be called to account for his regeneration policy. To show the kind of problems he faces, Mark Leftly examines three exemplary schemes that met very different fates