All Opinion articles – Page 311
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Opinion
When bigger is the opposite of better
Is gigantism a virtue? Apparently, yes. Fewer and bigger organisations has been one of the hallmarks of New Labour and, despite allowing the Home Office to swell like a beached whale, it still believes that big is beautiful.
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Opinion
A real opportunity for better schools
For those working in the design and construction of new schools, the challenges and opportunities of PFI, Building Schools for the Future and other capital funding programmes have created hope and frustration in almost equal measure. Over the last 18 months, School Works and other partners have been canvassing architects, ...
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Opinion
Free for all
John Gummer's proposal to scrap building regulations (News May 19) may help Richard Rogers to innovate but it won't help me.
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Opinion
Planning ahead
Writing on the admirable housing masterplanned by Feilden Clegg Bradley (Works May 5), Ellis Woodman put the achievement in context. Cambridge has a proactive planning department, until recently headed by an architect.
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OpinionHow can Arb justify its actions?
Your coverage (News, Editorial, Soapbox, Focus May 19) of overseas architects working in the UK was exhilarating, reflecting that, as your editorial puts it, the acknowledgement that being an architect in Britain is "more liberating, more inquiring and more creative than anywhere else in the world". But you also draw ...
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Opinion
Undeserved praise
Cambridge residents may be surprised to learn we have to thank a "proactive" planning department for anything. (Works May 5) The ground-breaking development on Brooklands Avenue is not due to the planning department's efforts: quite the reverse.
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OpinionOverseas students show superior skills
Arriving in Karachi is an unusual experience. A significant number of the meeters and greeters are carrying rifles, the temperature is 34°C and on the way into town the armed guards and I are overtaken by a moped carrying a family of four; the woman rides side saddle with a ...
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OpinionIan Martin
The real secret in the Corb Papers is known only by a shadowy and ruthless cabal of modernists, possibly with a Latin name
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Opinion
Greedy jibe unfair
As a construction lawyer who subscribes to BD and has written a number of standard form contracts, I was surprised by your argument (Leader May 12) that bespoke architects' appointments are created by lawyers to inflate their fees.
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Opinion
Foreign worker influx raises questions
There is a new army of foreign workers in Britain - and they're not Polish plumbers. They are architects who are finding that life here, particularly in London, has more to offer than it does back home. The numbers are impossible to gauge so BD thought it would do its ...
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Opinion
Diana obsession
Ivor Hall appears to have dedicated his life to the Diana Memorial. He has made countless requests to the DCMS under the Freedom of Information Act to gain information for a book.
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Opinion
Flawed criteria
I read the article informing us of the Cambridge Architecture School's prowess with a cynical slant (News May 5).
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OpinionStop lawyer's job creation scheme
I am delighted that both the RIBA and BD have taken up the cudgels on what is a transparent lawyer job creation scheme - the increasingly pernicious influence on clients by lawyers, who waste everyone's time and money on bespoke forms of agreement and special warranties (News May 12).
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Opinion
Correction
Patrick Bellew's practice Atelier Ten is an environmental engineer not a structural engineer as stated (Soapbox May 12).
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Opinion
Basic lack of trust
If you're designing churches or private houses maybe the new RIBA Standard Form of Agreement will catch on, but investors and developers don't trust each other let alone their architect.
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Opinion
Bald brick boxes
I am astonished at Alain de Botton's "hope and celebration" at Fielden Clegg Bradley's lamentable housing complex in Cambridge (Letters May 12).
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Opinion
Woolly liberals
Sheffield is not the only local authority where the Lib Dems have threatened wholesale demolition of sound housing stock to curry votes from the "get us out this hell" brigade (News April 28).
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OpinionHerminone Potter
Removing the colon from ‘local:vision' will be the first of many sweeping changes here, by the grace of God
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Opinion
High-rise hell
As Ian Simpson prepares to move into his lavish penthouse atop Manchester's Beetham Tower (This Week April 28), he might find J G Ballard's 1975 novel High Rise an entertaining read.