All Features articles – Page 636
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Features
Life saving
High quality for low cost was the brief for a £125m PFI hospital. For Kvaerner’s facilities management team, that meant planning 30 years of operation before a brick was laid.
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Features
The new west
Readers were treated to a preview of Bristol’s three new lottery projects, which opened yesterday, organised by Building and Corus. While the visitor attractions are impressive, it’s the open spaces around them that holds it all together.
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Features
Can you sue the referee?
In its subcontracts, Mowlem insists that a barrister from a particular chambers is used. When the other party put its own man in, Mowlem threatened to sue him. What happened next?
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Features
It’s a small world
Christian Spencer-Davies makes a living building diminutive versions of architects’ visions. It’s a life of long hours, difficult customers and little or no recognition. Why does he do it?
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Features
It’s payback time
The payment mechanisms in most subcontracts do not meet the standards set by the Construction Act. Here’s an argument to prove that, and a warning to contractors if they don’t take it on board.
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Features
Let’s be cynical …
Partnership agreements are getting legal teeth. This may sound like a good idea in theory, but it is bound to cause confusion and undermine the worthy aims of the partnership ideal in practice.
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Appointments
Contractors Construction contractor Snape has promoted Robert Bath to commercial director. Construction contractor Allen has promoted Neville Colvin to regional director for the Midlands and the South-west.Northern contractor Totty Construction has appointed Mark Peatfield construction director. Clugston Group, the Scunthorpe-based construction, property development and distribution services company, has appointed John ...
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Features
Coming to blows
All contractors, large and small, get into disputes at one time or another. This multimillion-pound struggle shows how overconfidence and haste can get even the biggest into a pickle.
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Features
Clean living
The Peabody Trust's zero-energy BedZED project in south London is a model for sustainable communities, as well as a useful guide to how designers can meet revisions to the Building Regulations.
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Features
The effect on non-domestic construction
Is the end of the transparent building nigh? Designs such as Foster and Partners scheme for the glazed fencing mask, also known as the Greater London Authority headquarters, could become a thing of the past if performance standards to avoid solar heating are introduced. The changes in the regulations aim ...
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Features
Cost model: Value for money
How can the project team identify the client’s needs at the start of a job? This cost model examines the techniques that can help firms define client requirements and develop solutions that add value to a project
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Features
The effect on the whole industry
All buildings will have to be better insulated. The document calls for “a significant increase in the insulating performance standards for building fabric”. So, the walls, floors, roof and windows of all buildings will have to have more insulation installed or be constructed from materials with better insulating properties. The ...
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Features
The effect on housebuilders
One of the most radical aspects of the proposals is that traditional house construction methods could become a thing of the past. The proposed increase in the insulating performance of the building fabric could mean the end of brick-and-block construction. “We are steering towards a greater use of timber-framed units,” ...
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Features
Fast food race hots up
The top four supermarkets are battling to cut build times and costs. But, as delegates heard at a Building-organised food retail conference on 16 June, one of the sector’s biggest challenges is to make sure savings don’t come at the expense of safety.
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Features
The long goodbye
Rob Smith of Hays Montrose explains how exit interviews can help you keep your staff.
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Features
Holes in the net
Insurers want to exclude e-business transactions from surveyors’ insurance. But firms are taking all the necessary precautions with their electronic output, aren’t they?
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Features
War on Waste
The government is getting tough on energy waste, so being green is more than just good PR. It is vital to your survival. Here’s what the Part L proposals say – and how they’ll affect you.
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Features
21st-century classic
Foster s design for a covered square in the heart of the British Museum meant the engineer had to sit 800 tonnes of steel and glass over the world-famous and grade I-listed Reading Room.