We’re a bit cloak and daggers this week (apologies to the faint-hearted), what with bloodied carpets, scribbled warnings and mysterious fires. Thank goodness some people are keeping a cool head
Snap, crackle and bang
In its relatively short lifespan, One Hyde Park has built up an impressive pedigree in the urban myth stakes. SAS doormen, panic rooms, bullet-proof windows, blood-splatter resistant carpets and secret escape routes to the hotel next door are some of the more colourful claims that have surrounded the luxury £1bn development. However, we can now exclusively reveal that all these stories are in fact - false. They have been strenuously denied by none other than the scheme’s architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. While it’s true that the practice could be merely trying to play down the paranoia of its fabulously wealthy clients, it’s also true that bullet-proof glass wouldn’t really be all that helpful if you were eating breakfast on your balcony.
Now you’re talking
Until now, embossing has been the most impressive technology deployed on a construction industry business card. But be prepared to be blown away by a space-age generation of “augmented reality” cards planned by one particularly advanced QS, which is not quite ready to go public with the innovation. View the card through a computer-linked camera and up will pop the three-dimensional head of the contact you have met in “normal reality”. They will even tell you their name and position. The end result is apparently like talking to floating-headed computer Holly from Red Dwarf. Could “emerging markets” include the colonisation of the galaxy?
All his own work
One industry grandee has gone beyond the call of parental duty by stepping in to write a university essay for his son. The fortunate student had the benefit of an eager father, w