More Focus – Page 540
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Features
Space-age design: a fly's eye view
The pair of giant spaceframe “biomes” at the £75m Eden Project in Cornwall are two of the most futuristic artificial structures in the UK. However, their design by Andrew Whalley, project director at Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, was deliberately influenced by the natural geometry of leaves, fly eyes, dragonfly wings ...
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Guaranteeing the Eden experiment
The Eden Project is the brainchild of a drop-out musician-turned-historic garden restorer Tim Smit. This CV hardly qualifies anyone to design and manage a ground-breaking construction project worth £75m, yet Smit had the foresight to second Ronnie Murning, director of London-based Land Architects, as design and development director.In combination with ...
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Site lines
These sites are billed as the "construction marketplace" and the "one-stop guide to the industry". Do they live up to their slogans?
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Constructiongateway.Com.UK
This site by Business to Business Internet sets out to provide an information highway for construction, but it looks overcrowded and unfocused. It claims that it is a “one-stop” guide to the UK industry and it does provide links to other sites, but it is fiddly to use.The search facility ...
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Don't forget to write
Does the Construction Act apply if there is only an oral agreement? The act seems to say yes, but the judge in a recent case said no. Clearly it's an urgent case for treatment.
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The threat of exposure
Adjudication has put insurers under pressure. So what do they do? Pass the burden of risk on to their policyholders, of course, inventing all manner of get-out clauses to make it hard for them to recover.
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Good as their words
The second article in a series on collateral warranties looks at the principal warranty, supplementary warranties and a vital aspect of professional indemnity insurance.
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Clash points
Pay-when-paid has been outlawed at the end of the subcontract chain, but the industry is still passing risk to firms in the middle. Why not have stand-alone contracts with each party accepting its share of liability?
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Clash points
True, subcontractors are still being forced to bear the same risk as main contractors, and stand-alone contracts are a fine idea. But it is clients that can really affect how liability is distributed.
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The power of speech
No amount of flash graphics and high-tech software can compensate for a presentation that is unstructured and hard to follow. Remember your first duty: to keep your audience awake.
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Cost model: ¾«¶«Ó°ÊÓ services
Services installations are crucial to the smooth running of construction projects, as well as the finished product, but their complexities are too often ignored. Mott Green and Wall, the specialist building services team within Davis Langdon & Everest, examines the specification, procurement and costs of a City office’s building services
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A cunning plan
Don't drift between jobs or settle for second best. Start running your career like a business and maximise profit.
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Appointments
Contractors Bob Nethery has been appointed senior business development manager at the Scottish construction division of MJ Gleeson. David Kay has been promoted to managing director of its new national construction division. Keith Shivers replaces Kay as managing director of the Northern construction division. Steve Landes has been appointed commercial ...
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Newcastle's budget halls
A new international passenger terminal has been added to a terminal at Newcastle International Airport. The addition, along with the refurbishment of the existing terminal, cost £27m and increases the airport's capacity to 4 million passengers a year. Designed by Crispin Wride Architectural Design Studio and engineer Gibb, it is ...
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The West Country's Stansted
Opened earlier this month, the new £27m terminal to Bristol International Airport replaces a building on the other side of the runway. The clear-cut rectangular building beneath an oversailing canopy roof and behind clear-glazed walls stands as the symbolic gateway to the West Country. Its 17 500 m2 area, which ...
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Do the public really have a say?
Public consultation is becoming a political imperative when it comes to new building schemes. But do current methods really get the community involved or merely pay lip-service to the democratic process?
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Flight plan
Regional airport terminals now put a premium on image to attract customers. But at the same time, design teams must deliver highly complex functional buildings on a tight budget.
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Rooftop drama
Walsall's bus station was meant to fuel the town's regeneration but four months after its planned opening date, contractors are still working to correct its sagging roof. What went wrong?
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Features
The Inflatable Café
How do you put a concrete and plastic structure in an area of outstanding beauty without spoiling it? Well, you could bury it, make it invisible, or blow it up it to resemble a cloud floating on a hill. Or all three