Gus Alexander

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    How I learned to love part L

    2010-10-22T00:00:00

    The ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV Regulations - it hardly needs saying - must be greeted with fear and loathing. But oddly, says Gus Alexander, they can instil a feeling approximating joy - if only for 10 seconds

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    Country matters

    2010-08-27T00:00:00

    For the architect, the country offers variety, novelty and the prospect of tanned craftsmen toiling in the wolds. But if you want control over a project, stick to the city

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    Planning applications: The age of consent

    2010-07-16T00:00:00

    Architects are spending more of their time doing designs purely to gain planning permission. But unless they’re going to help build them too, don’t expect them to be any good

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    Architects – meet the real world

    2010-06-11T00:00:00

    Many architects have evolved into service providers for giant PFI contractor consortiums. Which means that, if they lose their jobs, they can’t fend for themselves

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    Gus Alexander: Prince Charles the wrecker

    2010-05-14T00:00:00

    As if dealing with planners for months on end wasn’t painful enough, we now have to calculate a last-minute intervention from a prince addicted to retro architecture

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    The man from the ministry

    2010-03-12T00:00:00

    Who was also the client from hell, asked Gus Alexander to refurbish his flat. He then proceeded to give a masterclass in arrogance and incompetence. Here’s what happened

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    Why can’t we have boulangeries?

    2010-01-29T00:00:00

    The French have mastered the art of nurturing individual shops and businesses, whereas here, civilised life is leaking out of our town centres. Gus Alexander has an idea…

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    Party politics: Gus Alexander on overpriced party wall surveyors

    2009-12-04T00:00:00

    Gus Alexander doesn’t like to get involved in spats over party walls. Scumbag neighbours he can deal with, but overpriced surveyors who think they’re auditioning for Boston Legal? Never

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    The hard way: Gus Alexander on novating an architect

    2009-10-16T00:00:00

    Transferring control of the architect from client to contractor can work fine. It can also make everyone’s life a lot more difficult – particularly the architect’s

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    The wrecking crew

    2009-07-17T00:00:00

    Oscar Wilde said a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Gus Alexander suspects that much the same is true of value engineers …

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    Self-harming architects

    2009-06-26T00:00:00

    If architects have any time left over after baffling their novice clients, they ought to spend it explaining that it makes sense to pay them what their work is actually worth

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    Design and builders

    2009-05-22T00:00:00

    So Cabe is going to vet public projects to make sure they don’t look completely awful. Well, that’s a good thing of course, but we should ask ourselves why it’s become necessary

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    Outrageous fortune

    2009-04-17T00:00:00

    To make it as an architect you have to be prepared to endure long periods of evil luck as you wait for the phone call that will turn everything around …

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    The new realism

    2009-02-13T00:00:00

    The economic downturn isn’t without its consolations. It seems to be ushering in a new age of collaboration in construction and a more sober reckoning of what we’re about

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    That was then, this is now

    2009-01-16T00:00:00

    The recession gives us the opportunity to explore new ideas, says Gus Alexander. And, who knows, we might even get to think beyond the certainties of our home-owning democracy

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    The uses of adversity

    2008-11-14T00:00:00

    No two ways about it: the downturn is depressing for everybody, except perhaps the bankers who kept their bonuses. But, says Gus Alexander, there are crumbs of comfort if you search hard

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    It all used to be so simple…

    2008-10-03T00:00:00

    … but these days building seems more about feeding the surreal imaginations of planning officers and keeping a whole army of specialist consultants employed.

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    Prime cut

    2008-07-25T00:00:00

    Bad luck and relaxed invoicing meant Gus Alexander’s practice had it tough during the last recession but the lessons he’s learned means its looking pretty healthy this time around …

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    Wayne Hemingway in Gateshead: Wimpey à la mode

    2008-05-30T00:00:00

    The Gus report — In the latest of his reviews of much-hyped housing developments, Gus Alexander finds a Gateshead estate built by Wimpey but dreamed up by fashion designer Wayne Hemingway to be really rather dapper

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    Tender is the blight

    2008-05-02T00:00:00

    There’s no excuse for bid rigging, but there may be certain facts that explain it. Like, for example, the whole way competition is supposed to work in our industry

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