All Features articles – Page 593
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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 ...
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Features
Taking the wrap
From weighty architectural volumes to pocket-sized guides, Martin Spring looks at the best of the year's building books that you might like to give away this Christmas – or keep for yourself
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Features
Appointments
Housebuilders Cala Homes has appointed Catherine Padgett (right), previously with Wilson Connolly, sales adviser.Brownfield housebuilder Linden Homes Western has appointed Toby Ballard managing director. He was the land director for its South-east division.ClientsNevin Holden has been appointed land and planning director of strategic land company Barwood Land.Roger Duncombe (right), previously ...
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Features
Colour me beautiful
Sexy and tough, polycarbonate has a great future and Tate Modern architect Herzog & de Meuron has just covered the Laban Centre in south-east London in it. Thomas Lane meets the new kid on the cladding block
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Features
From executive box to chocolate box
When the government told housebuilders to drop executive estates, the reaction was frigid. But some firms have shown that high quality, high-density homes can mean high profits – even if the results can sometimes be a little soft-centred.
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Features
PFI: off the critical list
For a while, it looked as if the PFI – and with it the business plans of dozens of contractors – was sinking under a welter of abuse. Now, parliament's bookkeeper has found that it does offer value for money.
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Features
Dear Robert
This month, Robert Smith, boss of Hays Montrose, advises on making the most of your personal assistant and the the opportunities for a newly qualified QS in Edinburgh