Grand Designs Live closed yesterday. Based on Channel 4’s hugely successful Grand Designs series, presented by design guru Kevin McCloud, the live exhibition has gone from strength to strength since launching in 2005. You may have caught some of the live show on TV last week featuring ‘The House That Kevin Built’. This involved building a house from scratch in just six days using cutting edge sustainable building techniques including prefabricated straw bale panels rendered with lime which were designed by a lecturer at the University of the West of England. Read the rest of this entry »

In a week when the Office of National Statistics revealed an 8% drop in construction orders in the first three months of the year, we also heard that Shell wants to sell its stake in the world’s largest wind farm planned for the Thames Estuary. They say that US government incentives offer Shell better returns, so want to focus on wind power projects in the US. The London scheme would have generated power for a quarter of London homes but Shell’s decision has left this key clean energy project high and dry. Read the rest of this entry »

The tide of migration is turning and the construction industry could lose many of its Polish workers following the launch of a Polish government campaign to encourage builders to return home. Newspaper adverts and a glossy brochure at Polish cultural centres is talking up the opportunities in Poland which is experiencing a building boom and the current weakness in Britain’s currency means they are also getting fewer zlotys for their pounds. Read the rest of this entry »

Following one of the largest ever Competition Act investigations, the OFT last week issued a Statement of Objections against 112 firms in the construction sector in England. The OFT alleges companies have engaged in bid rigging activities, and in particular cover pricing. It said the firms colluded among themselves while bidding for contracts, leading to customers, such as local authorities, having to pay too much. Read the rest of this entry »

The world’s first wind-powered mega structure has just been completed. The Bahrain World Trade Center is the first commercial development with integrated large-scale wind turbines within its design. Three massive blades, 29 meters in diameter, are supported by bridges spanning between the two 50-story sail-shaped towers. The wind turbines will deliver 15% of the energy needs of the building. Some say it is just symbolistic kitch but it is still an eye-catching example of the use of renewable energy in new buildings. We have a link to a video of the building via the Buildingtalk blog. Read the rest of this entry »

The Olympics featured in the news last week with the Olympic torch relay through London on Sunday. There was also a survey which found that almost three out of four people in the UK believe the 2012 Olympics will bring no real benefit to their area. Even in London, host city of the Olympics, six out of 10 people said there was nothing really in the Games for them. However they will certainly be of benefit to the construction industry. In fact in recent years there have been scores of new sports facilities built in the including major projects such as the Wembley and Emerites stadiums and the new Cardiff International Pool. Read the rest of this entry »

Buildingtalk had its busiest ever week with 75,134 visitors accessing 412,328 pages on the website in the last seven days, giving an annual visitor rate of over 4 million. We also passed another milestone with the 25,000th story being added to the site on Thursday. This happened to be a drywall technology story about the launch of a new water and weather resistant board called Knauf Aquapanel Exterior, so it is featured below and you can follow the links to find out the full details. Read the rest of this entry »