All Features articles – Page 584
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Features
Taking the wrap
From weighty architectural volumes to pocket-sized guides, Martin Spring looks at the best of the year's building books that you might like to give away this Christmas – or keep for yourself
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Features
Five tips on spicing up your office party
Be innovative with your invitations to help set the mood of the party before it even begins. "We've produced snowdomes, Ali G-style medallions and bamboo scrolls," says Danielle Nay, managing director at event organiser Dr Party.Go for something unexpected on the entertainment front. "We've booked drunken waiters," says Wendy Clark ...
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Features
Star of Dresden
Wandel Hoefer Lorch & Hirsch's synagogue and community centre bring architectural inspiration to an urban wasteland
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Features
Comput-a-recruit
Forget filling in a quiz to find your ideal partner – now, high-profile companies are using psycho-profiling to discover which candidates fit a specific type to complement the rest of the team. But, Victoria Madine asks, does it work?
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Features
Brian Wilson
In an exclusive first interview, industry minister Brian Wilson talks to Building about the procurement lessons of Picketts Lock, making construction feel at home in the DTI – and his Beach Boy namesake.
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Features
Sounding the fire alarm
Use a blowtorch next to a stack of polystyrene insulation blocks, polythene-wrapped to a wooden pallet, and sooner than you can cite the health and safety code, you've got a roomful of poison gas. Something like this happens 11 times a day on UK sites. Tom Lane asks what's going ...
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Features
Lead times
The lead times for this quarter show that the sky hasn't fallen in yet for manufacturers, but suspended ceilings have been a bit shaky, as Gardiner & Theobald finds. For starters, Mace tracks the lead times for 38 works packages
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Features
Dear Robert
This month, Robert Smith, boss of Hays Montrose, advises on making the most of your personal assistant and the the opportunities for a newly qualified QS in Edinburgh
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Features
PFI: off the critical list
For a while, it looked as if the PFI – and with it the business plans of dozens of contractors – was sinking under a welter of abuse. Now, parliament's bookkeeper has found that it does offer value for money.
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Features
From executive box to chocolate box
When the government told housebuilders to drop executive estates, the reaction was frigid. But some firms have shown that high quality, high-density homes can mean high profits – even if the results can sometimes be a little soft-centred.
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Features
Colour me beautiful
Sexy and tough, polycarbonate has a great future and Tate Modern architect Herzog & de Meuron has just covered the Laban Centre in south-east London in it. Thomas Lane meets the new kid on the cladding block
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Features
Appointments
Housebuilders Cala Homes has appointed Catherine Padgett (right), previously with Wilson Connolly, sales adviser.Brownfield housebuilder Linden Homes Western has appointed Toby Ballard managing director. He was the land director for its South-east division.ClientsNevin Holden has been appointed land and planning director of strategic land company Barwood Land.Roger Duncombe (right), previously ...
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Features
Solving the people problem
Students are more level-headed about their career options than ever, so why aren't they picking construction? Cracking this conundrum is a vital battle
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Features
Waking up to the Pensions nightmare
That comforting nest egg for your loyal employees, the company pension scheme, may be hatching into a ravenous monster that will eat your business alive. Victoria Madine explains why – and what companies can do to escape.
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Features
Sky's the limit
Michael Mulvey set up his own QS, MBM Consulting, with business partner Jonathan Bowcott – and has found that the the possibilities are endless …
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Features
A literary classic
The classical style comes back big and bold at Oxford University's Sackler Library, designed by Robert Adam Architects. Impressive on the outside, the revived style reveals its limitations inside
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Features
Reality check
In the latest row over the accuracy of CAD imagery, Heron Tower architect Kohn Pedersen Fox has been accused of misleading planners. Stuart Black reports on the politics of presentation
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Features
Cost model: Effect of Part L revisions on business parks and offices
The revisions to Part L of the Building Regulations come into force on 1 April 2002, and many schemes on the drawing board will need to comply. Davis Langdon & Everest, in conjunction with consulting engineer Oscar Faber, explains how the revisions will impact on business parks and city centre ...