All articles by Thomas Lane – Page 5
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News
Insurers call for hybrid structures to make timber buildings easier to insure
Report recommendations include concrete cores and alternating concrete and timber floors to reduce flood and fire risk
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Comment
It’s good to talk about flood and fire risks
A new report on risks posed by timber-framed buildings is a positive first step towards greater collaboration
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Features
Hempcrete: a natural solution in the quest for better materials
 The insulation and low carbon credentials of bio-based materials such as hempcrete are winning over some serious players
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Features
University challenge: the LSE’s new Marshall ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø
The brief called for sports and arts facilities, as well as teaching and research space – it inspired a highly innovative response
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Comment
A tribute to Max Fordham
The pioneering building services engineer was that rare person, a highly original and inventive thinker in a notoriously conservative industry
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Features
Best of 2021: The big net zero carbon issues of the year
The COP26 conference in November gave the industry’s decarbonisation agenda added impetus
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Features
CobBauge: what on earth is going on?
An Anglo-French alliance is using subsoil and straw to demonstrate how low energy construction on housing projects can be made commercially viable. Thomas Lane reports
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Features
The new Black & White ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø: a clear case for timber
The Office Group’s first new-build project will be London’s tallest timber office building when it completes next year
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Features
Future forecast: October – December 2021
The latest quarterly sentiment survey by ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø Boardroom finds retail enjoying a big confidence boost but housing has gone off the boil. Meanwhile, engineers and cost consultants’ workload expectations are markedly up, but project managers and contractors’ optimism is decreasing
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Features
Mid Group: Making the most of modern methods of construction
ºÚ¶´ÉçÇø Boardroom talks with Steven Hearn, chief executive of Mid Group, about how the company’s focus on MCC helped it soar from zero to a £95m turnover in six years
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Features
Making waves: how Rugby Radio Station was retuned as a secondary school
The initial plan had been to convert Rugby Radio Station into the heart of a 6,200-home estate, but there was a shortage of secondary schools in the area and master developer Urban & Civic had other ideas, Thomas Lane visits Houlton SchoolÂ
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Features
Survey results: What benefits and incentives are firms offering to attract and retain staff?
The third in our series of staff management surveys looks at what construction firms are doing to find and keep staff
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Features
The heat and buildings strategy explained: what did it say – and was it worth the wait?
Published last week and running to 200 pages, Thomas Lane dives deep into a government initiative that promised much but had delivered rather less
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Features
Circus act: Creating Lucent behind the Piccadilly Lights
The space behind the world’s most famous advertising hoarding has been empty since the 1950s. Now Land Securities is building a 144,000ft² mixed-use scheme – while keeping those lights on. Thomas Lane reports
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Features
Just how good is wood?
In the third in our series on construction materials, Thomas Lane looks at whether wood really is the panacea many claim it to be
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Features
It’s a wrap: restoring Selfridges’ showstopper status
As if one shocking shopfront look wasn’t enough, Birmingham’s sassy Selfridges has donned a temporary garb of even greater gaudiness while faults are fixed in the glittering blue chainmail below. Thomas Lane explains the technical challenges
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Features
Steeling ourselves for climate change
In the second in our series on materials, Thomas Lane looks at the ways in which the steel industry can reduce its carbon emissions
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Features
Watch: CO-RE chief executive David Ainsworth video interview
Alinea’s Steve Watts talks to the London development management specialist about the office market
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Features
A lab of two halves … Warwick’s bold bid to keep those nasty bugs at bay
Designed by Hawkins\Brown, Warwick university’s new £54.3m interdisciplinary biomedical research facility features contrasting facades of dark bronze and white concrete that reflect the two different aspects of what is happening inside
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Features
Wolfson College, Oxford: first-class graduates in energy efficiency
Wolfson College in Oxford has set out to cut 75% of emissions on its main estate by March next year and plans to be net zero by 2030