Britain – SpecNews

Graham Construction secures £6.3m contract on Higgs centre

The Higgs Centre for Innovation will be built at the Royal Observatory in the city.
HILLSBOROUGH based building firm Graham Construction has secured a £6.3 million to build a space centre in Edinburgh named after renowned particle scientist Peter Higgs.
The space centre is just the latest in Scotland.
The new Higgs centre in Edinburgh will focus on space and big data technologies and the whole scheme will cost £12m when fitting out is complete.
Last month, Graham completed a £10m primary school in Fort William for the Highland Council.

‘Amber warning light’ on economy (From Herald Scotland)

SCOTTISH Chambers of Commerce has declared that its latest economic survey, which shows much weaker manufacturing growth and declining confidence among services firms, is an “amber warning light” for the UK and Scottish Governments.
The survey shows the first fall in optimism in the Scottish financial and business services sector for a year.
Scottish Chambers’ survey, conducted by Strathclyde University’s Fraser of Allander Institute, flags a sharp slowdown in investment growth in the manufacturing sector north of the Border.
The survey signals that year-on-year growth in sales revenue in the Scottish tourism sector accelerated between the second and third quarters.
And it signals a fall in capital investment in the financial and business services sector.

Sharp decline in construction drags GDP growth

But while steady growth in the UK as a whole is still expected, the prospects are less optimistic for Northern Ireland.
A STEEP decline in construction output dragged down growth in the UK’s economy in the last quarter with the slow down worse than anticipated at 0.5 per cent.
Analysts had forecast that growth would slow slightly from 0.7 per cent in the second quarter to 0.6 per cent in the three months to September.
Manufacturing continued to struggle as it fell by a more moderate 0.3 per cent, while mining and quarrying increased 2.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders Brian Berry said the figures “will shake away any complacency that the recovery in the construction industry can be taken for granted”.

Party with the Eameses! Inside the modernist masters’ riotous home

As Charles Eames used to tell his staff: “Take your pleasure seriously.”
The Eameses playful mischief is still evident in their home studio, the smaller pavilion that stands across a small courtyard from the house.
New employees of the Eames Office would be set the daunting challenge of rearranging the keys to make a new tune.
As the British brutalist architect Peter Smithson, an Eames-admiring contemporary, put it: “They made it respectable to like pretty things”.
A replica features in the exhibition, providing an appropriately anarchic plinkety-plonk soundtrack to the riot of ideas.

Should Britain’s ‘worst building’ be demolished?

That view of 20 Fenchurch Street that brought you to tears is the exact opposite of what he wanted.
Either 20 Fenchurch Street is there as long as it endures, or we do something about it.
After a day in Paris at Frank Gehry’s exhilarating fish-like, wave-like I found myself on the South Bank almost weeping at the view of 20 Fenchurch Street.
I still find it very hard to accept that Centre Point, a building that once personified hit-and-run property development, should now be a listed building.
Or even Sant’Elia, although buildings like 20 Fenchurch Street do seem to exploit modern engineering to create futurist dreams that would be a lot better left on paper.