April 7, 2014
RICS’ operational headquarters to relocate to Coventry Friargate Development
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has announced that it will be relocating its Coventry operational headquarters to a new building in the 37 acre sustainable, mixed-use Friargate development in the city. From 2017, RICS plans to lease 36,000 sq. ft. of space in the second building on the site, adjacent to Coventry railway station. The district will showcase cutting edge low carbon building design and regeneration policies by using local businesses throughout the construction phase to provide improved public transport links, affordable housing and public parks. RICS claims that ‘through a connection to an ultra-efficient combined heat and power generator, Friargate will be at the forefront of sustainable commercial accommodation, reducing both RICS’ carbon footprint and operating costs and offering RICS employees a much better work environment and surrounding area than they currently have.’
April 7, 2014
Can building design presage a fall from grace for the world’s tech giants?
by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Comment, Technology, Workplace design
At the movies, buildings are often used to denote hubris. The ambitions and egos of Charles Foster Kane and Scarface are embodied in the pleasure domes and gilded cages they erect to themselves. Of course, things then invariably go badly wrong. In the real world too, monstrous edifices have often presaged a crash. The UK’s most ambitious and much talked about office building at the turn of the Millennium was British Airways’ Waterside, completed in 1998, just a year after Margaret Thatcher famously objected to the firm’s new modern tailfin designs by draping them with a hankie and three years before BA had to drop its ‘World’s Favourite Airline’ strapline because by then it was Lufthansa. Nowadays BA isn’t even the UK’s favourite airline, but Waterside remains a symbol of its era, albeit one that continues to influence the way we design offices.
More →