All Comment articles – Page 62
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CommentBeware Greeks bearing gifts
One lesson the Connaught story tells us is that clients are too ready to accept prices that aren’t sustainable
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Comment
The big squeeze
Connaught’s difficulties have highlighted what most of us who work in the social housing repairs sector are already aware of
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FeaturesThe collapse of Connaught
The Sidmouth concrete specialist that morphed into a £600m social housing contractor was one of the greatest success stories of the past 30 years, and one of the landmarks of the industry. Andrew Hankinson reports on why it fell - and if the banks should have saved it
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CommentGreat crested newts!
As your recent article describes (27 August, page 36), the scale of the London Gateway Development - and the fact that the site lies at the heart of one of Europe’s most important estuary and wetland habitats - presents unique challenges
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Comment
Tradition be damned
Ah, the past, how it used to be (Inbox, The silent QSs, 10 September, page 22).
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CommentDonkey work and urban planning
A Kenyan island with an unusual freight-transportation system has inspired Amanda Levete to think again about designing for cities without cars
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CommentThe industry that played with fire
David Hayhow gives an insurer’s-eye view of the row over whether timber frame is a safe construction material. As you might expect, he has some fundamental concerns
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CommentHansom: Leaping lizards
There’s much hurling this week as industry leaders chuck themselves off buildings, press officers throw themselves into their work and Ann Widdecombe launches herself into the highland fling
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Comment
How much wood?
I found the words in Building’s leader (27 August, page 3) and the article on timber frame fire risk (page 9) incredible
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Comment
Maglev's inflexible
The only problem with maglev (and the reason it is not being adopted widely, even in China) is its inflexibility and inability to handle the passenger flows moving between cities (3 September, page 38).
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CommentLess really is less
To retrofit a building for energy efficiency, it’s no good tinkering with insulation or installing a heat pump. Only whole-structure solutions will change our future
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CommentWhat can be saved from Connaught's collapse?
Options for salvaging contracts with the failed social housing firm
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CommentWonders & blunders with Jonathan Foyle
Jonathan Foyle adores the back-of-an-envelope creativity that led to Lincoln cathedral, but is worried about the people who move to the nascent city at Salford Quays
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CommentInternational schools market: If you build it, they will buy it
If you want to carry on building schools for the future, develop a cheaper product that you can sell to poorer countries that are desperate for decent classrooms
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CommentWhy I'm convinced by free schools: Free-range children
Now the dead hand of central government has been prised from our throats, we can build schools in a way that is excitingly new - and strangely old-fashioned
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Comment
Count the costs
I read with interest the article by Mr Justice Akenhead (3 September, page 47)
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Comment
Turning the heat on fire report
In your article “Insurers call for urgent probe into timber-frame fire risk” (27 August, page 9) you state that the UK Timber Frame Association dismissed the findings of the government’s report on fire safety
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CommentHansom: Move over Sherlock
Building’s supersleuth uncovers the truth behind celebrity interviews, appeals for help in identifying a missing person, tails the RICS/QS row and meets a double murderer
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Comment
The worst-laid plans
Your excellent Brickonomics blog entry (23 February, building.co.uk) highlights the sheer naivity of those putting forward this New Utopia planning system.