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Go ahead for Google HQ and Farringdon developments but Smithfield plans back on hold

Running track at Google's new Kings Cross HQ

Running track at Google’s new Kings Cross HQ

Two landmark developments in London have been given the go ahead at the same time as the troubled plans to develop the iconic Smithfield market are once again put on ice. Google’s plans for a 924,000 sq. ft headquarters building as an anchor of the redevelopment of Kings Cross were waved through by Camden Council, while Islington Council has also granted permission for a 207,000 sq. ft scheme to develop six storeys of office space, with retail units at street level, on the corner of Cowcross Street and Farringdon Road, one of two new office developments located at the new Crossrail station.

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Sometimes health and safety failures can be a laughing matter

Wile E CoyoteOne of the regular refrains from those involved in health and safety management is that while they aren’t killjoys, protecting people from harm is no laughing matter. Well actually yes, sometimes it is. And if the health and safety profession wants to shake off the po-faced image it claims is unjust, it needs to realise that some of the people it is trying to protect are just bloody idiots. And however much you try to make things idiot-proof, you’re unlikely to make them bloody-idiot-proof. Some people will always come up with something you haven’t thought of and a new way to put themselves in harm’s way.

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BIFM pulls out of much publicised facilities management trade association merger

I don'tThe British Institute of Facilities Management has announced that it is to withdraw with immediate effect from the merger discussions it had entered into in May with its fellow trade associations, Asset Skills, CSSA and FMA. The decision to pull out was taken at a BIFM board meeting last week. According to a BIFM statement, the plans were not felt to be in the best interests of BIFM members. The decision comes as something of a surprise given that the week before the decision, BIFM was saying that it was delighted with  progress, although some commentators including our own Simon Heath had already expressed their reservations about the whole thing.

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Law firm defies sector’s West End exodus with office relocation

Davenport Lyons AtriumThe relocation by law firm Davenport Lyons from London’s Mayfair to its new offices at 6 Agar Street in the West End next month, means it is one of the last remaining West End-based law firms – most have moved out of the area due to the increasingly exorbitant costs. Davenport Lyons, which has been based in its current Old Burlington Street location for 23 years, says it remains in the area to form a “legal hub bridging the gap between the financial institutions and wealth in Mayfair, and the commercial banking sector in the city and Canary Wharf.” The new office space is also designed to deliver a semi cellular space solution, reflecting the next phase in the law firm’s evolution. More →

The latest issue of the Insight newsletter is now available to view online

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The latest issue of our weekly newsletter, Insight, is now available to view online here. This week: a report from Corenet claims that  global (meaning – American) space standards are moving closer to the UK norm; an update on the proposed merger between the UK’s largest facilities management trade associations; Simon Heath argues that when it comes to providing great service in FM it’s better to be exceptional at a few a things than mediocre at lots; the pitfalls of using social media as a recruitment tool; and why we need to come up with something better than the current approach to ergonomics which remains rooted in 20th Century thinking and legislation.

UKIP quip that women not competitive enough for business obscures real debate

UKIP comment on women not competitive enough for business obscures real debate

The comment by UKIP treasurer Stuart Wheeler that women are not competitive enough to merit a place in the boardroom grabbed all of the headlines from an important debate on the introduction of gender quotas on City boards. The news broke on the same day that employment body the CIPD issued a warning that businesses will continue to lose talented female workers if they don’t offer them a better work-life balance.  With research showing that around half of female managers choose not to return to work following maternity leave, how far should employers be going to retain female talent and encourage workplace diversity, and does gender equality really require a legislative stick? More →

Firms turn to flexible working and BYOD to placate mobile workplace rebels

TantrumA new week and a new raft of surveys. Thankfully some of them throw up some rather interesting juxtapositions. Take the latest from Virgin Media which claims nearly half of UK office workers are now significantly free to choose how and where they work with over two thirds of organisations convinced that offering more technological choices and flexible working results in happier and more productive staff. Meanwhile, another survey from tech firm (what else?) VMware claims that over a third of UK employees would consider leaving their jobs if they couldn’t get their own way over using mobile devices at work.

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Latest edition of Insight newsletter available to view online

Latest editon of office insight newsletter

In the latest issue of the Insight newsletter; a new RSA survey suggests flexible working could give people around five more hours working time per week; advice on keeping the workplace cool; the UK Green Building Council launches Regional Leadership Awards; and plans to redevelop Smithfield market are given the green light. Contributor Andrew Brown shares his thoughts on what Graeme Obree, the Flying Scotsman, can teach us about workplace innovation – while Charles Marks comments on the office design challenges for the expanding technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector. To view this week’s newsletter, which includes video footage of Charles Eames click here.

Dual source lighting schemes illuminate the way ahead for office design

Element790_Siemens2_MToo bright, too dull, too much glare – lighting (alongside air conditioning) is often one of the most contentious factors in a workplace. Office workers need illumination to read, write, type and interact. Yet many workplaces get it wrong and fail to consider the downsides of poor lighting, and as such staff will suffer from eye strain, headaches and postural problems, leading to sick days, not to mention lost productivity and mistakes. Eighty per cent of office workers experience at least one negative effect from poor quality lighting, according to researchers Bruskin Goldring, and 68 per cent of employees complain about the light in their offices, according to a study by the American Society of Interior Designers.

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Video: world’s largest building opens in China

Video: world’s largest building opens in China

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Dubai will be kicking itself at the news that the world’s largest building, or rather world’s largest standalone man-made structure, has opened in China. The New Century Globe Centre in Sichuan province is a mixed use development housing offices, leisure facilities, hotels, shops, restaurants and even a beach resort warmed by an artificial sun. The 18-storey, glass and steel frame structure, is situated above a new metro station in Chengdu, stands 100 metres high, is 500 metres long and 400 metres wide giving it a floor space of 1.7m sq. m.  making it the world’s largest standalone building, beating the previous record holder Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport by around 50,000 sq. m. and, as measured according to internationally recognised lazy media shorthand analogies, able to house 20 Sydney Opera Houses.

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The challenge in Silicon Alley is providing the right quantity and quality of office space

M4 Silicon AlleyNews emerges from BNP Paribas that the most dynamic occupiers in Western European property markets belong to the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector and that the most important market in the region is London. This comes as no surprise given the plans of Google to move to its new home in King’s Cross and the focus on developments in Tech City. But the same hothousing of TMT businesses is also evident in the area Prime Minister David Cameron has referred to as Silicon Alley, a cluster of businesses running alongside the M4 originally clustered between Reading and Swindon but now extending as far as Bristol. Companies that have found a home in the area include the likes of Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Ericsson, Vodafone, O2, Citrix, Dell, Huawei, Lexmark, LG, Novell, Nvidia, Panasonic, SAP and Symantec not to mention the countless other smaller businesses, consultants and freelancers that share this hothouse.

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Design Museum sale paves way for resurrection of Commonwealth Institute

Commonwealth InstituteDeskheads of a certain vintage may have viewed the news that Zaha Hadid had bought the Design Museum’s London home for £10 million in a somewhat different light to much of the media that reported the sale. While journalists succumbed to the apparently irresistible pull of architectural headline magnet Zaha, to some of us the interesting part of the story was that the sale finally freed the Design Museum to move to the long empty Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington. The building is one of the most architecturally important modern buildings in London and has a long association not only with The Commonwealth Institute educational charity but as a venue for cultural events and exhibitions of design, not least the now defunct Prima and Spectrum exhibitions which did so much to promote commercial interior design in the UK.

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