Opinion – Page 629
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Stop passing the buck
The industry is coming to realise that, by the end of next year, every site worker will have to be trained. Just don't leave the training to your competitors
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Take them to the vets
The trouble with adjudication is that the referees often aren't up to much. We need a new system of choosing them and a better way to keep them on their toes
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Self-inflicted injuries
Two stories about contractors who got themselves into deep trouble because they failed to take some simple precautions before signing on the line
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Get on with it
The key to planning reform is not to wait around for top-down change, says Gareth Capner. It is the people on the ground who need to get the ball rolling
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Life should mean life
What's the point in paying for long-life products if you can't sue when they fail after the limitation period? Not much – but fortunately, a new law is on the way
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We're sadder, but are we wiser?
So, has the worst building collapse in history changed construction? Everyone, including this magazine, seemed to think so in the aftermath of 11 September. As Sainsbury's cancelled its twin 40-storey towers in London, we suggested that skyscrapers would lose their mystique, and that the generational shift from building outwards to ...
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Cities of joy and shame
Why is Salisbury closer to Santa Fe than Manchester is to Leeds? Well, you'll have to go to Birmingham in the autumn to answer that question …
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Knockout argument
The received wisdom nowadays is that adjudication is better than going to court. But sometimes the court can offer a quick victory at a bargain price
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Can't get no satisfaction
'Merchantable quality' in contracts is still talked about, but it is 'satisfactory quality' that we should be focusing on
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Putting an end to it all
An employer who wishes to terminate a deal had better not take the contract too literally, as sometimes its most important rule is an unwritten one
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Just say no
You've got your dispute, you've got your adjudicator – and you've got your adjudicator's unreasonable terms of appointment. What should you do next?
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Base motives
Starting from this month, anyone who repays a debt late is liable to an additional 12% per annum interest. So, how will late the late payers try to wriggle out?
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Desecration row
Iconoclasts have come a long way from Byzantium to Brockhampton, but they're still smashing up £7m of church property a year. Here's a solution …
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Same time, same place
Many people have run away with the idea that delay caused by a client forgives delay caused by a contractor. It doesn't
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Hush money
Most of us will do anything for a quiet life. And if the peaceful enjoyment of our homes is shattered by noisy neighbours or aeroplanes, we're increasingly likely to sue
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You had to be there
It is easy to mock RIBA president Paul Hyett for rolling up in Johannesburg this week (pages 18-19). The third earth summit has "fiasco" written all over it: 60,000 dignitaries are trying to save the planet in two weeks, thereby expending more greenhouse gases than Africa produces in a year. ...
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Techno-toys r us
The evolution of home technology holds the promise that Le Corbusier's dictum, "the home is a machine for living in", will be less of a design philosophy and more of a literal reality.