Opinion – Page 595

  • Comment

    Where are the opportunities?

    2003-11-07T00:00:00Z

    I am fed up reading about the industry's lack of profile and appeal.

  • Comment

    Prevention is better than cure

    2003-11-07T00:00:00Z

    Rudi Klein (24 October, page 35) is right to point out that there is no room for defective thinking to remedy defective design.

  • Comment

    Supplier-led solutions

    2003-11-07T00:00:00Z

    Although it is hard to disagree with the majority of Egan's basic views (24 October, page 42), by drawing on his experience in the car industry, he actually did the construction industry a disservice.

  • Comment

    Spot the adjudication loophole

    2003-11-07T00:00:00Z

    I am advising a builder who has a dispute with a private residential client. His contract, a standard JCT98 form, states that there is provision for adjudication.

  • Comment

    Wonders & blunders

    2003-11-07T00:00:00Z

    Simon Woodroffe raises a cup of saki to Foster and Partners' GLA building, but makes water in the direction of a London estate

  • Comment

    Making a mark on the 21st century

    2003-11-07T00:00:00Z

    The Brick Development Association's annual Brick Awards showcase excellence in the use of brick, whether by architects, designers, engineers or brickwork contractors.

  • Comment

    Who's for excellence?

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    The government has just updated its guidance to its own staff who are involved in procuring buildings. Here's what it says about risk allocation and project team integration

  • Comment

    Ask the aspidistra

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    The new construction minister wanted to know about the industry, so he did something rather unusual: he asked it. Here is what it replied

  • Comment

    A message to kate barker

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    The Barker review has been set up by the government to examine the issues affecting housing supply. Kate Barker, a Bank of England economist, has been put in charge of this review, which is now in the consultation stage.

  • Comment

    Reality check

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    It'll never happen. That was the view of some housebuilders in the audience on hearing the lugubrious economist Roger Bootle's storm warning for the UK housing market's future at our Future Homes conference last month.

  • Comment

    Eat your heart out, J-Lo

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    We enter a contract like an A-list marriage, expecting it to end in conflict. But is the industry really so confrontational? Or do lawyers just love a good old barney?

  • Comment

    Hansom

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy 200th birthday dear Joseph Aloysius Hansom – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  • Comment

    Why are we so stiff?

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    Takeovers and an over-complex planning system have forced small housebuilders out – and robbed the industry of its ability to respond to changes in demand

  • Comment

    Fain would I dwell on forms

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    JCT standard contract forms may be very useful, but are they truly works of literature? As far as copyright law goes, yes – so make sure you remember this

  • Comment

    Pay and display

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    If adjudicators do not get their fees, they can't simply withhold their decision. But even if they do, that's not grounds for challenging the decision itself

  • Comment

    Self-inflicted crisis

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    It is certainly true, as Georgia Elliott-Smith points out (Sitelife supplement, October 2003), that construction is a lot younger and more dynamic than people think – or at least it should be.

  • Comment

    Jacks of all trades

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    We run a postgraduate course for construction industry professionals, Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment, at Cambridge University, and we tackle the issues raised in the letter “Radical thinking” (10 October, page 36).

  • Comment

    Be specific

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    A two-stage procurement strategy for the Chemistry ǿմý for Queen Mary University of London was described as "traditional" (18 July, page 64), presumably in the expectation that readers were familiar with the procedure.

  • Comment

    A tale of two monarchies

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    “There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision,” wrote William James, Henry’s smarter brother, in his Principle Of Psychology.

  • Comment

    A question of currency

    2003-10-31T00:00:00Z

    This was an appeal by the defendant, Manuel Revert, from a decision of His Honour Judge Hegarty QC delivered on 6 December 2002. The Judge ordered that the claimant, Virani Limited, was entitled to damages which were to be assessed in US dollars. Manuel was a purchaser of cloth, while ...