More Focus – Page 437

  • Features

    Movers and makers

    2003-06-13T00:00:00Z

    The Environment Agency has teamed up with research company HR Wallingford to develop a British Standards Institution-approved Kitemark scheme for flood protection products. The Environment Agency said it believed this was the first quality standard in the world for flood protection. The first products to win Kitemark approval are Floodguard ...

  • Features

    Fit for a king

    2003-06-13T00:00:00Z

    Poundbury. The very name of this 21st-century housing model strikes fear into the hearts of specifiers everywhere, as it demands strict compliance with tough design rules – and under the watchful eye of a rather important man. We meet a valiant developer who wouldn't be deterred

  • Features

    Handover heart

    2003-06-13T00:00:00Z

    You work at it, you complete it, you celebrate it and you go home feeling warm and fuzzy. And the next morning your client moves into an office that's too hot and too cold. Architect Mark Way has a way to stop this happening. We find out how

  • Features

    Cost model: Supermarkets

    2003-06-13T00:00:00Z

    Supermarkets are among the UK’s top 10 construction clients. In this cost model, Davis Langdon & Everest and Mott Green Wall examine the costs, specification and procurement of new build and existing stores

  • Features

    The rules

    2003-06-13T00:00:00Z

    The new Part L of the ¾«¶«Ó°ÊÓ Regulations favours supporting joists in masonry with hangers over built-in joists. We explain how the NHBC has redressed the balance

  • Features

    Senseless acts of beauty Ltd

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    Britain's plazas are littered with bad public art commissioned by bureaucrats. Now, artists are collaborating with architects and developers right from a project's concept stage, and afterthoughts are being replaced by grand visions

  • Features

    Meet the board

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    Why is the construction industry facing a skills shortage? The answer may have something to do with the gentlemen at the top table

  • Features

    Sabotage

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    Contractors are facing a worrying trend: the sabotaging of sites by their own workers – sometimes even by their own security teams – and the cost of putting the damage right is beginning to hurt. Now they're getting tough on the vandals

  • Features

    Just the job

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    Matthew Pullen of PFI consultant Rock explains why there's no time like the present to go into PFI work

  • Features

    Cost update: June 2003

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    Davis Langdon & Everest focuses on how much to pay for structural steelwork and carcassing timber in three UK regions, and reports back on the latest pay deals – particularly for plumbers

  • Features

    Gael warming

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    The forecast for the Hebrides is variable, to say the least. But for the inhabitants of the island of Tiree it is getting brighter, thanks to a sleek modernist ferry shelter

  • Features

    Movers and makers

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    Brett Paving has opened its £6.7m block paving factory at Cliffe, in Kent. The company says the 2520 m2 facility is the largest of its type in Europe, and will increase the company's output by up to 60%. The company says the extra capacity is enabling it to launch several ...

  • Features

    An engineer's babelfish

    2003-06-06T00:00:00Z

    We can create wonderfully powerful and detailed pictures of how buildings behave thanks to an irritatingly repetitive, tedious and costly modelling process. Now one company has found a way to make it all work better

  • Features

    Learning the lingo

    2003-05-30T00:00:00Z

    You hear those corporate catchphrases every day. You may even use them. But do you really know what they mean? Make sure with our jargon-busting guide to talking the talk

  • Features

    Now it's critical

    2003-05-30T00:00:00Z

    In a desperate bid to speed up the delivery of PFI hospitals before the next election, the government has turned to batching contracts. But will the bidders be up to the task?

  • Features

    Hard and fast

    2003-05-30T00:00:00Z

    The project team had to build a village for 1000 students in 91 weeks on a budget that was tighter than a hippopotamus' leotard. The only chance was a risky, little-known construction method. ¾«¶«Ó°ÊÓ found out what happened next

  • Features

    McCarthy & Stone asked 394 local authorities whether they had assessed the housing needs of older people.

    2003-05-30T00:00:00Z

    Why does this matter? Because it is depriving elderly people of housing choice and making it difficult for retirement housebuilders to meet the increasing demand for their product.

  • Features

    (Where) The mummy lives

    2003-05-30T00:00:00Z

    They may have taken longer to build than planned, but judging by their popularity, there's no curse on Crest Nicholson's Ingress Park homes. Josephine Smit talked to director Stephen Stone as he paid a call on one of the residents.

  • Features

    How low can he go?

    2003-05-30T00:00:00Z

    Famed for an audacious, but failed, bid for Tay Homes, Country & Metropolitan boss Stephen Wicks had better luck with his acquisition of NorthCountry Homes. Now he's championing rock-bottom sale prices and planning his next buy. Josephine Smit met him.

  • Features

    Factfile

    2003-05-30T00:00:00Z

    Planning approvalsThe southern market may be slowing but Berkeley Group is still feeding its development pipeline, with the highest number of approvals in April. Overall, the emphasis has moved away from London and the South-east, with most approvals being won in the West Midlands and the North-west.New-build completionsPrivate completion numbers ...