All Features articles – Page 662
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Top priorities
We could put men on the moon but couldn't make roofs that installers didn't fall through, says Brendan Dowd, who wants everyone to take more care of each other.
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Features
‘I’ve got 30 minutes to shift your belief stucture’
Cluster group meetings are the Movement for Innovation’s tool for sharing new ideas and shifting entrenched attitudes, but can gatherings of Egan evangelists change the industry? Building went to one meeting to find out.
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Features
The legal 500
The construction law sector is getting bigger, tougher and more lucrative. This year's league table of the best regarded firms covers the UK on a regional basis, and includes areas of special interest, such as private finance initiative work.
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Features
Life after Rogers
When architect Pierre Botschi was made redundant after 14 years with Richard Rogers, he found the going tough – until he met interiors specialist Jack Pringle and moved into hotels.
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Features
Appointments
ContractorRichard Lumby has been appointed managing director of Crown House Engineering, the building services arm of Carillion.Housebuilders Trevor Thompson, formerly Yorkshire regional director for Wimpey Homes, has been appointed managing director of retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone’s new North-east division.Redrow Homes has promoted Rob Slocombe to sales director in the ...
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Features
Cost model: Indoor arenas
The growing popularity of indoor sports such as ice hockey and basketball has led to a boom in new indoor arenas in many UK cities. QS Davis Langdon & Everest examines the cost implications and specifications of indoor arenas
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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?
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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
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
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
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.