All Features articles – Page 591
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Features
Cream of the Continent
The biggest construction companies in Europe have shifted positions slightly since last year’s league table, but the names remain the same. So why do Vinci, Bouygues and Hochtief always appear at the top of the pile – and streets ahead of UK firms?
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Features
Welcome to the eurozone
With the euro now in 300 million pockets, and even creeping into Britain's high streets, it'll be hard to ignore Europe in 2002. For our industry, the €64,000 question is whether the currency will eventually turn the UK into the north-west region of the biggest construction market on earth.
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FeaturesVa va vroom!
Faced with landscape in which the only distinguishing feature are the mountains of red tape, Dutch architects have fought back with a joyous, renegade modernism.
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Features
2001: A sobering year
It began with a champagne-propelled property fair on the Côte d'Azur, and ended with firms cancelling their Christmas parties to save money. In between, 2001 was dominated by the attacks on America and Afghanistan but it also included Labour's election landslide, the foot-and-mouth epidemic, the Wembley fiasco, a saucy recruitment ...
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Features
New model army
In a frantic bid for seasonal frivolity, we accosted an assortment of industry types, plied them with wine, and locked them in a room with a vast pile of household junk and a brief to recreate 2001's iconic buildings in true Blue Peter style. But would the architects, engineers or ...
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Features
Sounding the fire alarm
Use a blowtorch next to a stack of polystyrene insulation blocks, polythene-wrapped to a wooden pallet, and sooner than you can cite the health and safety code, you've got a roomful of poison gas. Something like this happens 11 times a day on UK sites. Tom Lane asks what's going ...
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Features
Brian Wilson
In an exclusive first interview, industry minister Brian Wilson talks to Building about the procurement lessons of Picketts Lock, making construction feel at home in the DTI – and his Beach Boy namesake.
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Features
Comput-a-recruit
Forget filling in a quiz to find your ideal partner – now, high-profile companies are using psycho-profiling to discover which candidates fit a specific type to complement the rest of the team. But, Victoria Madine asks, does it work?
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Features
Star of Dresden
Wandel Hoefer Lorch & Hirsch's synagogue and community centre bring architectural inspiration to an urban wasteland
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Features
Five tips on spicing up your office party
Be innovative with your invitations to help set the mood of the party before it even begins. "We've produced snowdomes, Ali G-style medallions and bamboo scrolls," says Danielle Nay, managing director at event organiser Dr Party.Go for something unexpected on the entertainment front. "We've booked drunken waiters," says Wendy Clark ...