More Focus – Page 250
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FeaturesForeign cash builds up Kurdistan
Successful efforts to attract overseas investors have created a construction boom in this autonomous region of Iraq
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FeaturesExpat survival guide to Portugal
Portugal has wads of EU cash to spend on infrastructure, and the salted cod balls are apparently delicious
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FeaturesPhase One Bristol: the west is the best
Phase One allows the industry’s latest recruits to make contacts, learn about its most exciting projects and, in the case of this one at Bristol, consider the building as enormous artwork.
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FeaturesGeneration gripe 24.10.08
Fed up with eager young pups at work who don’t know they’re born? Or had enough of hearing how it was back in the old days? Email us with what’s bugging you about the other generations…
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Features
Lead times: August-October 2008
The downturn continues to wield a considerable influence on lead times, with only concrete works reporting an increase since July. Brian Moone of Mace crunches the numbers
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FeaturesData centres: pruning energy consumption
The next time you use Google, think of the vast amounts of power data centres use – 20 times that of a normal office. Stephen Kennett looks at what companies are doing to prune their consumption
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FeaturesWebmaster review: Eric Kuhne Associates website
Website civicarts.com shows off all the architect’s latest projects, including the giant Kuwaiti City of Silk
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FeaturesSpotlight: Utilities
As a recent NFB survey has found, connecting your site to gas, water and electricity can be a real headache for contractors. Brian Moone and Bob Hollingsworth explain the form
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FeaturesBuilding's 2008 Poker Kings tournament: three of a kind
Building’s 2008 charity poker tournament ended in a dramatic contest between the final trio of players
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FeaturesGo for the burn: Bouygues UK’s daily workout
Warming up before work used to mean eating your bacon buttie while it was still hot. But now, in an effort to cut down site injuries, Bouygues UK has stepped things up a gear.
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FeaturesIt’s a balancing act
Last year, employers had one overriding problem to address: how could they recruit/poach/scrounge/bribe enough decent people to handle the endless stream of projects flowing from well-capitalised clients?
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FeaturesBrave new world
Many companies are mounting expeditions abroad to escape the UK downturn, but with global expansion comes a whole set of interesting problems.
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FeaturesTreat your staff with honesty and humanity
Thousands of people have been made redundant in the past few months and more will probably follow. How should a good employer handle this painful process? Josephine Smit found out
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FeaturesWhy do we give benefits?
Some firms shower their staff with cars, flexitime, parties and sabbaticals on the understanding that their generosity will be rewarded. Debika Ray finds out if it is
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Features
The big picture: Employers guide 2008
So now we know which construction’s best employers are, but what else does all that data tell us? David Rogers crunches the numbers
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FeaturesCrumbling cookies
Your wallet may feel a bit light right now, but that’s just the way things are sometimes. Cheer up, put on a cuppa and mull over Guy Browning’s creative economies, starting with …
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FeaturesLean machine – Southwark council HQ
So many commercial developers crank out the same old generic office space. But here’s one that dares to be different. Stephen Kennett visits Southwark council’s low-energy headquarters in London – and, no, there’s not a false ceiling anywhere
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Features
Products in brief
The Galvanizers Association has published a new guide, Galvanizing and Sustainable Construction, which aims to help architects, specifiers, engineers, developers and their clients use galvanized steel in the context of sustainable construction.
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FeaturesThe alternatives: Thermal mass
Integrating structures and services to get the most out of thermal mass can be a good road to lower energy consumption. Stephen Kennett looks at Tarmac’s solution
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FeaturesWe want to make a complaint – ConstructionSkills’ Mark Farrar interview
It seems that the industry is deeply unhappy with ConstructionSkills. Roxane McMeeken tells its new boss why – and asks him what he’s doing about it. Photographs by Tom Harford Thompson