Topsy-turvy

Financial incentives

Apparently the RIBA’s attempts to market itself in the Middle East have received a bit of a boost. It’s not because the architects don’t need the institute’s services, but rather because “riba” means moneylender in Arabic. In these dark financial times, perhaps the architectural body will get more inquiries than it was expecting …

Job swap

The construction industry donned its finest bib and tucker last Saturday for the annual Alliance Ball in Battersea Park, London, organised by Stanhope and Bovis Lend Lease in aid of Unicef. The event raised more than £300,000 for the children’s charity last year and it looks like this year’s total will be pretty hefty as well, with a motorbike donated by Ewan McGregor being sold for £30,000 and Madonna’s handbag and a trip to New York to see her in concert going for £20,000.

An equally glamorous lot was scooped up by Ramboll Whitbybird, which bought the chance to guest edit this esteemed publication for £16,000. The engineering consultancy will take the reins at for a week later in the autumn. Watch this space.

Fire and ice

Now that summer is well and truly over, thoughts are naturally turning the winter holidays, and whether to opt for sunbathing in warmer climes or a spot of skiing. Well, in Saudi Arabia you will soon be able to have both. And although Dubai may already have a snowdome, the Riyadh alpine village will have actual falling snow (I’m not sure if glühwein is included though). Apparently anything Dubai can do the Saudis can do better, but there’s one slight hitch – the projects needs a few hundred million quid to get it off the ground. Anyone interested in a timeshare?

The road to Oblivion Industry veterans may be reaching for the roller-coaster metaphor more often than they used to these days when asked to describe the state of the market, but Curtins Consulting has taken this one step further. In a bizarre response to the chill winds sweeping the construction world, the engineer recently whisked its 180 staff off to Alton Towers for the weekend. According to chief executive Rob Melling the idea was to “give staff something to smile about” and “keep them feeling as secure as possible”. So staff shouldn’t read too much into the names of rides such as “Nemesis” and “Oblivion”.

You’re not buying, you’re stealing!

Incredulity abounded in the industry last week as news broke that Vinci had paid just £74m to relieve beleaguered housebuilder Taylor Wimpey of its renowned Taylor Woodrow subsidiary. “They paid how much?” gawped one senior executive at a rival contractor. “When they came knocking on our door the price was about four times that!”

In this bear market, housebuilders are obviously no strangers to offering incentives for deals, but I can’t quite see the selling price of new homes being knocked down by three-quarters in the same way.

Totalitarian housing

In the week that Liverpool limbers up for the launch of its Le Corbusier exhibition, there has been a resurgence of interest in other big names in 20th-century construction. Yes, that’s right – Mussolini, Stalin and Ceausescu have been cited by arts organisation London Fieldworks and architect Consarc as the inspiration behind an installation at King’s Wood in Kent. Commissioned by Stour Valley Arts, Super Kingdom is a development of animal habitats for native and migrant species. Apparently, they think that Stalin’s palace of science and Ceausescu’s people’s palace would make perfect “animal showhomes”. Next week: Robert Mugabe’s tips on dealing with tender price inflation.