All Features articles – Page 661
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Features
Moonbase Walsall
The surreal lunar landscape may look like something out of Space 1999, but it is actually a roof of somewhere far more down to earth – a bus station in Walsall.
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Features
Justice at the speed of light
The new payment rules are getting disputes worked out in only 28 days – none of that hanging around waiting for the other chap to go bust. But the courts can move even faster.
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Features
Just the job
The IT manager and former travel rep tells Elaine Knutt why you can change direction without getting in a spin.
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Features
High noon?
Nick Raynsford is now faced with the crucial decision on how tough to make the quality mark, the centrepiece of his anti-cowboy plan. What factors will he be taking into account?
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Features
One up at half time
Coventry City has a mountain to climb – a £122m stadium, a controversial site and Cardiff’s example of what can go wrong still fresh in the memory. The good news is that, so far, it’s all working out.
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Features
The trouble with GMP
Just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman, parties to a guaranteed maximum price contract should realise that price is not really guaranteed or maximum. If they don’t, they could be in trouble …
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Features
Entering extra time
A client makes a change to its building, so the contractor wants more time to build it. Believe it or not, the law was vague on how the extra time should be assessed. Now it may be clearer.
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Features
Replenishing the earth's resources
Planted roofs are still a rarity in the UK, unlike in Germany, where planning permission for developments on greenfield sites is granted only if the building’s roof and landscaping can provide greenery equivalent to the square meterage lost under concrete.The UK market for eco-roofs is a fraction of the size ...
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Features
Fluid dynamics
The arching, fluid lines engineered by Buro Happold at Stuttgart Station give the impression that its concrete roof is flowing down to the platforms like molten lava. This is liquid architecture.
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Features
Keeping the racket down
Acoustic designers could be costing clients money by over-specifying acoustic solutions. Now, software has been developed that tracks how sound moves through a building and how to stop it.
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Features
Spectacular comeback
A £26m cost overrun, a redesign and a row have wreaked havoc at the flagship venue for the Rugby World Cup. But they are all behind it now – just two weeks before the first match.
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Features
Cost study: National Energy Centre in Milton Keynes
Low-energy buildings usually mean high capital costs. But not the National Energy Centre in Milton Keynes; it was built for nearly £200/m2 below the average unit cost for headquarters buildings. Compiled by Weston Williamson, Ove Arup & Partners, and Davis Langdon & Everest
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Features
Alun Michael
As "prime minister" of Wales, Alun Michael holds the purse strings for development in the country. But will the man once called "Tony Blair's poodle" boost or curtail it?
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Features
How did it go £26m over budget?
The main reason Laing lost so much money on the redevelopment of Cardiff Arms Park was that it guaranteed a maximum price on a design that was undergoing change. The original design had masts raking out at 45° at the four corners of the stadium, but a row between Millennium ...
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Features
How do you like it so far?
Client care research is a tool used by an increasing number of professional services firms to keep their clients loyal, and guarantee continued income.
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Features
Tale of the expected
A recent case is worth looking at precisely because it is nothing unusual for construction, just a bog standard tale of things going pear-shaped on site – and in court.
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Features
Social circuit
PowerGen's naturally ventilated HQ, built in 1995, promised to promote staff interaction. Five years on, is it living up to expectations?
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Features
Trying cases
Requirements to use "best endeavours" and "reasonable endeavours" appear in many construction contracts, but do they mean you can sue somebody if you think they're not trying hard enough?
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Features
Get on the bus
Training is a key ingredient of any IT overhaul. But how best to do this when staff are scattered throughout Britain? Easy. Go to them.
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Features
Back in boom
Last year, the market was about to fall off a cliff. This year, orders are up, house prices are up, and Wimpey is starting a yuppie housing scheme it mothballed last year. Too good to be true?