Search Results for: london

April 16, 2014

European Commission names Munich as continent’s main tech hub

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

Never mind the Champion’s League, there is a fascinating battle across Europe’s major cities to win the tech hub crown, or at least wear it for a year before it is snatched away by some other agglomeration of latte-sipping arrivistes. The latest City to be awarded the mantle is, perhaps surprisingly, Munich often seen as something of a laggard even within the borders of Germany, playing second fiddle to Berlin. According to the European Commission report (not so snappily titled Mapping the European ICT Poles of Excellence: The Atlas of ICT Activity in Europe) even London, usually regarded as the continent’s tech heartland, bends the knee to the Bavarian City. According to the report’s authors Munich is particularly strong in research and development, although it loses out to London on other factors including networking and access to finance. Paris was placed third.

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April 7, 2014

RICS’ operational headquarters to relocate to Coventry Friargate Development

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News, Property

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.’

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April 4, 2014

RICS issues case studies to celebrate strategic role of facilities management

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property

RICS has published six case studies examining the impact strategic facilities management (FM) can have on business performance. The case studies were devised following the publication of a 2012 research report, Raising the Bar: Enhancing the Strategic Role of FM, which found that over 75 per cent of survey respondents believe that facilities management is a strategic role. This was followed earlier this year by Raising the Bar: City Roundtables Report which made specific recommendations for action, including better promotion of the strategic role played by facilities management within organisations. The case studies were launched at the BBC’s Salford Quays building, featured in one of the studies, which describes the role the BBC’s FM team took in relocating critical services from London to Salford Quays and how the FM strategy was responsible for fostering creativity in the organisation. (more…)

April 3, 2014

Rush to convert offices as demand for commercial property hits 14 year high

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

A new report from commercial property specialists Lambert Smith Hampton claims that demand for office space in the UK this year is set to hit its highest level since 2000. The firm claims in its annual Office Market Review that the take-up of office space could reach 30 million sq. ft in 2014, continuing the momentum from the remarkable 33 percent upswing in demand last year. However, the report also notes that, following the introduction of the Government’s new permitted development legislation in 2013, the number of notifications for conversions of office buildings to residential use jumped 500 percent in the first six months. The trend will act as a further constraint on supply and push up rents as businesses seek additional space for expansion or moves to new property at the end of leases although it will also remove obsolete office space in many less desirable business locations.

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March 28, 2014

UK is world’s fourth most attractive business location, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Manchester, Europe’s cheapest large city for businesses

The latest edition of KPMG’s bi-annual study of the comparative attractiveness of more than 100 cities (many of them in the US) as business locations claims that the UK is one of the world’s best countries in which to do business. The Competitive Alternatives Report for 2014 assessed the competitiveness of cities in ten countries across four commercial sectors – digital services, research and development (R&D), corporate services and manufacturing – and found that the UK is the second most competitive country for corporate services; third for digital services; fourth for R&D and manufacturing and fourth overall. In Europe, the clear cost leader is Manchester with overall business costs more than 10 percent lower than those of London, the only other UK city assessed. The report claims the UK’s tax regime is a crucial factor for international enterprises as they make important funding and operational decisions.

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March 27, 2014

Design of the Year shortlist contrasts what is practical with what is possible

by Simon Heath • Architecture, Comment, Workplace design

A great many of us pay architecture and design very little attention until it’s too late and we’re confronted with the workings of a mind that doesn’t consider whether just because we could really means we should. The kind of mind that designs a building that melts cars on the street or one with wind turbines that are so noisy they can’t be turned on. And so this week sees the announcement of nominees for the Design Museum Designs of The Year awards. It’s a studiedly eclectic list. In amongst the Lego calendars and texting fire alarms we also find a mobile gaming app designed to be used over many centuries (it is impossible to finish it in your lifetime, natch) that, it says here, “questions the inevitability of death, the meaning of legacy and the nature of progress”. I’ve searched for signs that this might be satire without success. However, we’ll focus our consideration on the nominations for designs for the built environment. (more…)

March 20, 2014

Happiness and wellbeing more important to people than economy

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

Whatever their opinion on yesterday’s Budget, the vast majority of Britons think levels of happiness and wellbeing matter more than the size of the economy. In a YouGov poll commissioned to mark today’s United Nation’s International Day of Happiness, a majority (87%) of UK adults were found to prefer the “greatest overall happiness and wellbeing”, rather than the “greatest overall wealth” (8%), for the society they live in. And despite the Conservative Party’s much lampooned attempts to appeal to working class people who they presume enjoy bingo and beer, this majority was found to be broadly consistent across all regions, age groups and social classes. LSE economist and co-founder of Action for Happiness, Lord Richard Laya says the results show that more priority should be given to mental health and wellbeing. (more…)

March 18, 2014

RIBA submits plans for new offices near its landmark Art Deco HQ

by Sara Bean • Architecture, News, Property

76 Portland Place, W1

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has submitted a planning application for the creation of new high-quality new offices near its London headquarters. 76 Portland Place, London W1, which currently houses the Institute of Physics is being designed by a team led by award-winning architects Theis and Khan and is next door but one to RIBA’s Art Deco landmark building at 66 Portland Place. Built in 1958, it was designed by Howard V Lobb and Partners and had a ground floor extension added in the mid-1990s. The planning application includes the complete refurbishment and alterations of the existing office building to create office spaces and meeting rooms for around 180 staff – located over five floors; including first to sixth in the main building and first and second in the mews building. (more…)

March 18, 2014

What the UK regional divide can teach us about the way we design offices

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Workplace design

In the BBC documentary Mind the Gap, Evan Davis asks why London has an economy that is larger than and different to those of other UK cities, but also getting bigger and more differentiated. One of the main reasons he finds for this is something called agglomeration; the more skilled people you can put within physical reach of each other in an environment, the more productive and economically successful that environment will become.The problem for the UK is that not only is London of a different magnitude to its other cities, it does not comply with something called Zipf’s Law which states that in a typical country the largest city will be around twice the size of the second largest, around three times the size of the next largest and four times the size of the fourth largest and so on. It shouldn’t be taken too literally but it does illustrate the important economic principle of agglomeration and explains why there is such a widening divide in the UK economy.

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March 14, 2014

Might a lack of joined-up thinking undermine UK high-tech ambitions?

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Property, Technology

Old Street: the UK’s tech epicentre

Over the past week both Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson have offered up visions of economic success founded on new technology. Yet, as the CBI points out in a new report pinpointing the dearth of talent needed to make such dreams a reality, politicians often appear to ignore the realities of a situation. In its new report, Engineering our Future, the CBI calls for significant action to make a career in the key disciplines of science, technology, engineering and maths more attractive and easier to pursue. The report points out that these are the skills needed to underpin the Government’s stated focus on the tech, environmental, engineering and manufacturing industries that will shape the country’s future and is calling for a cut in tuition fees, new courses and inter-disciplinary qualifications to allow those skills to flourish.

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March 13, 2014

Gallery: Google’s Kuala Lumpur office offers an alternative vision of a tech palace

by Mark Eltringham • Workplace design

Mention the offices of Google (or Facebook or Apple) and you’re perhaps most likely to think of the latest generation of gleaming Xanadu-like corporate tech palaces now being planned or built in London or California. But the new offices of Google in Kuala Lumpur offer a distinctly different vision. Designed by M Moser Associates, this is a compact community space centred on a cafe, meeting rooms and retro gaming zone. The pre-school acid colours and shapes, regionalised biomimicry, exposed building services, toys and knowing use of vintage decor are all familiar elements of a design aimed at young(ish) techies and creatives, but the main drivers for the revamp are the equally familiar commercial needs to consolidate a previously dispersed workforce into a single space and give them a choice of zones in which to interact. (more…)