More Focus – Page 527

  • Features

    Langerak, Leidsche Rijn

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    Langerak is one of the very few contributions by a British architect to Dutch mainstream housing. While conforming to Dutch conventions of layout and construction, the new-build scheme of 77 terraced houses for sale, designed by Maccreanor Lavington Architects, manifests a slightly English domestic character. The housing scheme is part ...

  • Features

    How do they do it?

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    Six Dutch construction techniques are being put through their paces on Millennium Plus, a social housing scheme on the Nightingale Estate in Hackney, east London. Here's how they will speed up site works.

  • Features

    … and how much does it cost?

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    Transplanting Dutch housebuilding techniques to British soil could mean cost savings of up to 15% – but only if certain conditions are observed.

  • Features

    Speed freaks

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    With sports-car looks and plenty of oomph beneath the bonnet, the latest gadgets will set pulses racing. Pay up, plug in and prepare to roar down the information superhighway.

  • Features

    Time is not on your side

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    If an adjudicator awards a builder a given sum for work that is subsequently shown to be defective, is the client within its rights to knock off a certain amount to compensate?

  • Features

    Getting even

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    Some councils charge firms a fee every time they put up a hoarding in a street. Cowboys, of course, don’t tell the council and don’t pay. Under the best value rules, this has to stop – but will councils apply them?

  • Features

    Setting a new standard

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    The first standard form partnering contract has been launched, and here the man who helped to draft it explains why the industry is going to like what it sees.

  • Features

    The RIBA bites back

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    Robert Akenhead’s last article (“Who’d employ an architect”, 28 July), was a root-and-branch attack on the RIBA’s new standard contract, which, he argued, unreasonably limited an architect’s liabilities and heaped obligations on the client. Here, two members of the institute give their response.

  • Features

    Cost model: Commercial research laboratories

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    It has been decided that UK plc’s economic wellbeing depends on its scientific base, so billions of pounds of investment are being poured into it. The snag for construction is that labs are unlike other buildings. So, in this month’s cost model, Davis Langdon & Everest looks at what goes ...

  • Features

    Opinion poll

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    Do you know what your staff really think of you? Use an employee attitude survey to find out, says Hays Montrose’s Rob Smith.

  • Features

    Appointments

    2000-09-08T00:00:00Z

    ContractorTaylor Woodrow has appointed Jeremy Sampson group general counsel. He will be responsible for legal services.HousebuilderStamford Homes has appointed David Connolly land director at its head office in Peterborough.Consultants Turner & Townsend has promoted Mike Moore to director of its operation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Project manager and quantity surveyor ...

  • Features

    Cost update

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    This quartely analysis looks at materials prices for disposal systems and the latest wage agreements

  • Features

    The top 50 contractor's web sites

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    The first-ever league table of contractors web sites is about to be published, and it shows that you don t have to be big to rule the net. Here s how the rankings were compiled, and how to challenge for the top spot in 2001.

  • Features

    Dickon Robinson

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Modest, intelligent and visionary, the Peabody Trust development director has an uncanny knack of solving problems before anybody else notices them.

  • Features

    You haven’t been paying attention

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    After years of penny-pinching neglect, Britain s squalid schools are being completely re-evaluated and this time, design is at the top of the agenda.

  • Features

    Architects’ fees survey 2000

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Ask a brickie how he s doing and you ll hear that, not only is the industry fine, but more and more money is finding its way into his back pocket. Ask an architect, however, and, as Mirza and Nacey Research s figures published today suggest, you ll hear a ...

  • Features

    How the West 12 was won

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Assemble a 1500 tonne steel bridge on the fragile roof of a shopping centre while keeping the shops open and dodging rotten fruit? It's all in a day's work in the badlands of Shepherd's Bush

  • Features

    Out of bounds

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Section 105(2) of the Construction Act is a real dog s dinner. Under it, certain site works are not covered. So, what happens when someone calls an adjudicator on an exempt site?

  • Features

    Whose loss is it anyway?

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    A company that hasn t suffered direct loss from defective work can t sue for damages under the provisions of common law, according to the judgment in one of the longest disputes in construction history.

  • Features

    The price of freedom

    2000-09-01T00:00:00Z

    Adjudication may be a right, but that doesn t stop firms from adding clauses to deter people from exercising it which makes the Construction Act more costly to run than it need be.