Search Results for: innovation

Government extends public estate scheme as DCLG moves in with Home Office

by • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

public estateThe UK government has announced that it is to extend its groundbreaking One Public Estate scheme to a further twenty local authorities. The programme aims to divest and consolidate government-owned land and property to cut public sector spending and boost economic growth and regeneration. The government believes the initial phase will save £21m in running costs and £88m in capital receipts, generate around £40m for local economies and create an estimated 5,500 jobs and 7,500 homes over the next five years. The Cabinet Office is now looking to build on this with the extension of the schemes to councils including Liverpool and Birmingham city centres as well as six from Greater Manchester and Cornwall, Southampton and Plymouth. The Government Property Unit will provide funding and training to the participating authorities.

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BIFM survey reveals lukewarm approach to sustainable facilities management

by • Environment, Facilities management, News

Sustainable facilities managementA new report from the British Institute of Facilities Management reveals the lukewarm approach many UK organisations have to sustainable business practices generally and sustainable FM in particular. The study, based on online research carried out in the Spring with the University of Reading found that, while an overall majority (60 percent) of facilities managers think sustainability is effectively integrated in to their businesses, most operate on the ‘border of compliancy’. The report makes this conclusion based on the fact that its survey showed that over three quarters of respondents (78 percent) claimed that the main driver for the development of sustainability policies is corporate image and a similar proportion (77 percent). The report concludes that this ‘suggests a ‘box-ticking’ approach to sustainability instead of businesses embracing and investing in longer-term practices and the advantages of spending to save’.

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RIBA announce Stirling prize shortlist for best new building 2014

by • Architecture, News

The Shard in the City of London, the Library of Birmingham, the Manchester School of Art, the London School of Economics, the Everyman theatre in Liverpool and the London Aquatics Centre have been named in the shortlist for the 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize for the best new building. The six shortlisted buildings will now go head-to-head for architecture’s highest accolade, to be awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on 16 October 2014. The six buildings will be judged by the same criteria: their design excellence and their significance in the evolution of architecture and the built environment. Stephen Hodder, RIBA President said: “The RIBA Stirling Prize is awarded to the building that has made the biggest contribution to the evolution of architecture in a given year. Every one of the six shortlisted buildings shows what great public architecture can do: it can transcend mere construction to something quite poetic.” (more…)

Book Review: Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace by Nikil Saval

by • Comment, Furniture, Work&Place, Workplace design

Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace

Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace

Nikil Saval’s book Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace pulls off that rare feat for a parochial business book of being intelligent and informed (which many are) as well as fascinating, entertaining and realistic, which is rather less commonplace. He pulls this off with plenty of references to pop culture including television series such as Will and Grace, films such as Office Space and The Apartment and, inevitably, the Dilbert cartoons. There is also a great deal of enjoyment to be had in the slightly jaded tone of his writing and brutal evisceration of the likes of Tom Peters who is singled out for special criticism. So too, his take on the very  idea of the ‘Office of the Future’ with its slides, basketball courts, pool tables and vivid colours.

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Green building design ‘goes mainstream’ in major US cities

Green building design ‘goes mainstream’ in major US cities

by • Architecture, Environment, News, Property, Workplace design

Green building design

Minneapolis – the home of US green building design

It’s not just Europe that is experiencing an explosion of interest in green building design. According to a new report from CBRE and Maastricht University, the past ten years have seen a transformation in the way the US corporate real estate market approaches the environmental performance of buildings. According to the National Green Building Adoption Index for 2014, produced by CBRE there has been a remarkable increase in the  application of green building standards in the thirty most important regional commercial property markets in the US. Based on data from the US Green Building Council,  the number of office buildings which are LEED* or Energy Star** certified has surged since 2005. The proportion of LEED certified buildings in America now stands at 5 percent, up from under 0.5 percent over the course of the survey period. The total proportion  of office space which now has some form of green accreditation is just under a fifth.

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Four regional winners named in competition to find world’s best tall building for 2014

by • Architecture, News, Property

best tall buildingThe awards programmes pile up at this time of year and following the announcement of RIBA’s best workplaces for the year, four buildings, from the United States, Australia, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates, have been named the best tall building in the world for 2014 in their respective region by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). An overall winner for the “Best Tall Building Worldwide” will be named from the four regional winners, following presentations from the owners and architects of each building, at the CTBUH 13th Annual Awards Symposium, which will take place at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, on November 6. The symposium will be followed by the Awards Ceremony and Dinner in the iconic Crown Hall, designed by Mies van der Rohe. The 10-Year, Urban Habitat, Lifetime Achievement, Building Performance and Innovation awards will be announced in the coming weeks, and will also feature at November’s awards events.

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Virtually Uninspiring, Cautiously Aspirational – award winning offices for the VUCA world.

by • Architecture, Comment, Workplace design

award winning officesWorld-of-work watchers will be more than aware that we are increasingly being informed that we are living in the VUCA age, which under normal circumstances is an acronym for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous but in the context of these RIBA Award Winners for 2014 might be taken in a number of other ways. Commentators and self-styled thought leaders are warning businesses to prepare for seismic changes to the way work gets done, where, how and by whom (or by what, if proponents of automation and robotics have anything to do with it). How lovely then, that RIBA have made awards to seven offices that hark back to more comforting, more halcyon, times. The text of the accompanying feature in Architects Journal is at pains to point out that offices are hard to design and that RIBA awards are hard won. I wouldn’t disagree on the former point but, from the evidence on show, it’s a bit more of a challenge to agree with the later. So I won’t.

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UK businesses have mixed attitudes to flexible working, according to two new studies

by • Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

Flexible working City of LondonThe mixed attitude of businesses towards flexible working generally – and a new tranche of UK regulation in particular – is evident in two new studies. While a Citrix survey found that under half of small and medium sized business owners support the new flexible working legislation due to come into force at the end of this month with even fewer seeing it as a positive development, another study by recruitment consultants Robert Half found that two-thirds of large financial services firms use flexible working as a way of attracting and retaining employees. According to the report, this is particularly important in The City right now because  many prospective employees are put off by the poor image of the financial services industry and so firms are keen to make themselves more attractive employers so are turning to flexible working and better workplaces to entice high-grade staff.

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Lack of joined up thinking hampers efforts to reduce commercial property energy consumption

by • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

SunriseA new report commissioned by the Green Construction Board, Property Industry Alliance and UK Government claims that efforts to tackle energy consumption in commercial property and reduce the associated emissions of greenhouse gases needs a new approach to the way policies are understood, monitored and enforced. The warnings come in a paper produced by Deloitte which suggests that while the associated potential for savings and a wide range of environmental and economic benefits are beyond question and the Government has the will to make them happen, there is a lack of cohesive thinking in current policies and legislation coupled with a shortfall in innovation and investment. When the report was commissioned last year, it was done so on the basis that buildings remain the UK’s largest contributor to carbon emissions, with energy use in non-domestic buildings accounting for 17 per cent of the total.

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England’s technology firms now employ more people than California’s, claims new report

by • News, Property, Technology

technology firmsAs we reported last week, London and the South East of England remain the UK’s hotspots for new business start-ups and now new research claims that the region now has more people working in the vital technology and information sector than the capital of world tech, California. The report from South Mountain Economics and Bloomberg Philanthropies shows that there are nearly three quarters of a million people working for technology firms in London, the South East and East Anglia compared to 692,000 in California and that there are more firms working in financial technology in London than either Silicon Valley or New York. The report backs up new research from Oxford Economics, commissioned by the Mayor of London to coincide with London Technology Week, which claims that over the next decade, London’s digital tech sector is expected to grow at a rate of 5.1 per cent per annum, creating an additional £12 billion of economic activity and 46,000 new jobs, which in turn is driving change in the commercial property market. (more…)

The boardroom knows tech is important but leaves IT decisions to others, claims report

by • News

BoardroomThere is a recognition within the boardroom of the importance of information and communications technology (ICT), but business leaders see tech as something for technology managers to worry about and many are unable to make effective decisions anyway because they are digitally illiterate (and some are proud of the fact). Those are some of the findings of a new report from Sunguard Availability Services, published in partnership with Professor Joe Peppard of the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. The study claims that the growing strategic role of technology offers chief information officers (CIOs) a chance to elevate their position and drive the wider business agenda. But also that this can be held back by a lack of engagement, or even the boardroom taking no account of ICT whatsoever, with strategic IT alignment remaining an afterthought for many organisations.

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IFMA & BIFM to discuss work and place at Workplace Strategy Summit

by • Facilities management, News

Workplace summit to discuss work and placeLeading academics and experts in the fields of facility management and real estate are meeting to discuss the most innovative concepts to emerge in workplace strategy at the Workplace Strategy Summit, beginning this weekend at the Wokefield Park Conference Centre in Berkshire. The International Facility Management Association (IFMA), British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) and IFMA Foundation will come together from 8-10 June to discuss the themed “Innovation on the Edge.” The editorial team at Workplace Insight has produced a special issue of the Occupiers Journal, Work & Place featuring in depth articles, case studies and comments from some of the key speakers at the event. Paul Carder, publisher of Work & Place said: “As well as the journal’s obvious relevance to the creators and managers of places we were also keen to find subjects which are equally relevant to managers of the “work” process.”

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