More Focus – Page 523

  • Features

    It's all about respect

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    Enthusiasm, professionalism, and a love of punk rock just the qualities you'd expect from Ian Eggers, CIOB Ðǿմ«Ã½ Manager of the Year.

  • Features

    'Busier than we've ever been'

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    That's the view of one North-west consultant, but is the picture the same across the country? Ðǿմ«Ã½ toured the UK to find out

  • Features

    Conservation piece

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    A wood-frame roof may not sound unusual, but Buro Happold's take on it the UK's first timber gridshell at a Sussex history museum is enough to make a structural engineer whimper with fear.

  • Features

    Perfect pitch

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    How can a roof make you sound better? The one that tops Shrewsbury School's concert venue is elliptically shaped to help the students make beautiful music.

  • Features

    Who was to blame?

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    The tragic death of three children in a house fire led to a council design team being sued for negligence. The case went to the Court of Appeal, and laid down some important rules on designer liability.

  • Features

    The sense of proportion

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    Jarndyce & Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the Court, perennially hopeless, wrote Charles Dickens, satirising the legal system of his day. It's better now, though, as the rules on proportionality demonstrate.

  • Features

    Satisfaction guarantees

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    A new, improved brand of performance bond is now available for project financing and promises to be a cheaper way of covering more risk particularly on private finance initiative projects.

  • Features

    The biter bit

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    The RIBA really must pay attention to developers' complaints about the SFA/99 standard appointment form architects will only suffer from the preferential treatment it gives them.

  • Features

    Tender price forecast

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    Continued steady growth is the order of the day, with tender prices, materials costs and new orders all continuing to rise. Many contractors are becoming increasingly selective, but the output picture is less clear.

  • Features

    Balancing act

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    Allowing workers a home life is the new trend, says the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development s Angela Baron.

  • Features

    Appointments

    2000-10-13T00:00:00Z

    Contractor EBC has promoted Robert Wood to area director based in Plymouth. He will be responsible for construction, building and maintenance operations. Housebuilders Grenville Homes Group has appointed Fiona Gordeno sales and marketing manager. David Hill has been promoted to group surveyor at Acorn Homes. He will ...

  • Features

    Solar power: just a bright idea

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    With the ice caps melting and oil prices soaring, solar has never looked a better bet. But in Britain it remains the concern of cranks and visionaries. Will this ever change?

  • Features

    Robert Jones

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    The former Conservative construction minister is now chairman of housebuilder Redrow. Which means he’s back with his first love: planning.

  • Features

    Going with the grain

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    Something is afoot in the land of the log cabin. To help boost its timber exports, Finland has developed a range of high-tech wooden products and built striking structures to showcase them.

  • Features

    The stuff of beams

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    FBEAM is a new software tool for designing long-span fabricated beams in commercial buildings. Is this the program structural engineers have been waiting for?

  • Features

    Don’t listen to chickens

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    So, the Discain case has knocked the wheels off the entire adjudicatory system, has it? Don’t you believe it – the judge was just making a perfectly fair point about being perfectly fair.

  • Features

    Variations on a theme

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    The dispute over how to value variations under the ICE form, recently considered by the Court of Appeal, has just been given another twist by the Technology and Construction Court.

  • Features

    A natural reaction

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    The Discain case has fuelled the debate over the conduct of adjudications where one party feels there has been a breach of natural justice that affected the outcome.

  • Features

    Cost study: Birmingham Repertory Theatre

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    The diversity of performing arts buildings makes it hard to talk about a typical case, but the £7m refurbishment of Birmingham Repertory Theatre reveals some common issues

  • Features

    Just the job

    2000-10-06T00:00:00Z

    What makes a gym manager want to become a surveyor? Berit Eis asks a Willmott Dixon trainee who did.