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To help address the current skills gap in the West Midlands, Solihull College has made a significant investment in state of the art facilities for both construction and engineering disciplines to ensure it can train work ready employees. This commitment to both students and local industry was solidified last week at the official VIP launch of the College’s new £8.5 million motor vehicle and construction facility at the Woodlands Campus. Some of the West Midlands top industry names, including Jaguar Land Rover, Arup, Mansell Construction, Monarch Airlines and Snap-On Industrial joined the College to celebrate the launch. The new facility in Smith’s Wood houses twelve new workshops, enhancing and supporting the College’s offering in subject areas including motor vehicle, motor sport, engineering and construction. To celebrate …

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The government’s decision to require that all suppliers involved in public sector construction projects use Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools and techniques by 2016 makes sense. This should help drive improvements in value and performance, whilst supporting environmental commitments by facilitating a more integrated approach to design, construction, and facilities management. However, misinformation is rife. BIM is not just about 3D data but about creating a holistic information resource that also includes 2D data sources, documents, spreadsheets, and more. Nor is BIM best realized by a single, lowest-common-denominator data model imposed on every organisation in the supply chain. BIM is a business process, not a technology. As Neville Glanville, industry sales director, Bentley Systems, explains, the key to realising the compelling BIM vision is simply ensuring …

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FINAL PART  – the Top Ten 10. Savonnerie Heymans – Brussels, Belgium Image Source The Savonnerie Heymans social housing project is an attempt to create an entire environmentally friendly neighborhood consisting of public housing. Designed by local firm MDW Architecture, the development offers various apartment types, including lofts, maisonettes and duplexes, all of which incorporate energy-efficient qualities. Solar power and rainwater harvesting are just two of the eco-conscious features of the complex, which is built on the site of an old soap factory and utilizes the original structural elements where possible. You can see the old chimney for yourself. The 42-unit complex, which was completed in 2011, won a 2012 Prix Bruxelles Horta Award and earned a special mention at the 2012 Belgian Building Awards. 9. Les Loggias – Paris, …

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PART TWO  19 – 11 19. Angers Social Housing – Maine-et-Loire, France Image Source French architectural firm Studio Bellecour designed the Angers social housing project in France’s Maine-et-Loire department, aiming to break the mold of the stereotypically negative “concrete block” synonymous with schemes of this nature. Hence, the studio came up with a dynamic design that is both unified and intimate yet still clearly separated and defined for the different units and structures – each of which has an asymmetrical rooftop over an attic. The idea was to create a close-knit and positive environment that retains residents’ privacy, and the development was completed in 2010. 18. Vivazz, Mieres Social Housing – Asturias, Spain Image Source For its Vivazz, Mieres project in Asturias, Spain, French/Belgian design …

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PART ONE  30 – 20 As populations grow and cities become more crowded than ever, public housing has become an increasingly important issue for governments around the world. However, social housing is no longer limited to characterless blocks of concrete. These days, the aim is often to provide low-cost housing to individuals and families who need it – while still affording them the dignity of well-designed and distinctive homes. These modern public housing projects frequently incorporate eco-conscious designs and elements, as efficient energy usage tends to be a priority. Here we look at 30 of the world’s social housing developments that break the mold, undoing negative stereotypes and serving as remarkable works of architecture in their own right. 30. Mirador Housing Project – Madrid, Spain Image Source …

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Crossrail is not just about engineering: artists, designers and archaeologists are all involved in the £15bn new railway. The amazing tunnel-boring machines now approaches halfway. Sometimes, when flying over a landscape, you see a seam of unexpected fecundity – lush trees, richer green – that indicates the presence of water or a change to a more fertile soil. Something similar is happening across London. If property values could be made visible (and often they are, by increases in new construction), you would already see a long strip of intensification, in a city that already is hardly a desert, running from east to west. Over the next few years, it will become more and more apparent. This is the effect of the underground Nile called Crossrail and it …

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Help to Buy is a start – but we can never build enough homes unless the State lets go of its land: Barratt boss calls on Ministers to help ease property crisis Mark Clare may be the boss of Britain’s biggest housebuilder, but he has to admit that he has never bought a Barratt home. As perhaps is more fitting for the chief executive of a company whose profits rose 74 per cent last year, he lives in a five-bedroom Edwardian house in the leafy commuter town of Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. Then there is the 60ft motor cruiser moored in the Solent. The boom in profits at Barratt is of course thanks to the resurgence of the British housing market. Official mortgage lending figures last week showed a 37 …

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Housebuilders’ shares have more than doubled in two years as home prices have recovered, but an uncertain interest rate outlook and rising costs mean gains look more modest – and more precarious – in 2014. Government schemes, including the “Help to Buy” programme, which guarantees up to 15 percent of applicable mortgages, helped push house prices to an 11-year high by one measure last month, fuelling concerns about a potential bubble that could burst when interest rates eventually rise. House prices will rise on average 4 percent this year and 5.5 percent next and even more in London, according to a Reuters poll of market watchers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has played down talk of overheating and asked the Bank of England for annual recommendations on the …

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Ealing Council has signed off on a plan to build nearly 200 homes as part of a £155 million estate regeneration scheme. The build will focus on the West of the borough, and will see the creation of 187 new homes at a time when the government has been under pressure to build affordable housing. In July the government announced a £220 million investment into affordable housing in Britain to push the build of up to 14,000 new homes to cope with a growing population, but work won’t start until 2015. The scheme by Ealing Council, contracted to A2Dominion and Rydon, will see phase two of the Green Man Lane development, designed by Conran & Partners, put into full swing. David Price, Regeneration Director at A2Dominion said: “This …

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Fassi will launch a new 15 tonne/metre loader crane next week at the Solutrans exhibition in Lyon. The F165AZ has been developed with a eye on the French public works market, and features a built in foldable control station and unusual over centre geometry, both intended to take up less space and free up the truck bed from obstructions, especially handy when used for loading/unloading loose material with a clamshell grab. The three section boom has two telescopic sections which use a single cylinder and extension chain saving space which allows hoses to be routed internally. Maximum reach is eight metres. The prototype at the show will be in the Basic configuration with direct hydraulic controls. A version is also planned with Danfoss compensated proportional …

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