Prime minister Tony Blair and London mayor Ken Livingstone last week opened two flagship buildings on the Ford estate at Dagenham in east London.
On the left is the £325m Dagenham Diesel Centre, a state-of-the-art car factory, and on the right is the £23m Centre of Excellence for Manufacturing and Engineering, Britain's first vocational university. The design for the Diesel Centre was by Austin-Smith:Lord, structural engineer was Royal Haskoning and QS was Gleeds. The Centre of Excellence contains a spherical auditorium, lecture rooms and car engineering workshops. It was designed by Sheppard Robson. The structural engineer was Campbell Reith Hill and QS was Faithful & Gould. Both were built by SDC Builders.