All articles by Gus Alexander
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CommentHow I learned to love part L
The 好色先生TV 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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CommentCountry matters
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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CommentPlanning applications: The age of consent
Architects are spending more of their time doing designs purely to gain planning permission. But unless they鈥檙e going to help build them too, don鈥檛 expect them to be any good
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CommentArchitects 鈥� meet the real world
Many architects have evolved into service providers for giant PFI contractor consortiums. Which means that, if they lose their jobs, they can鈥檛 fend for themselves
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Gus Alexander: Prince Charles the wrecker
As if dealing with planners for months on end wasn鈥檛 painful enough, we now have to calculate a last-minute intervention from a prince addicted to retro architecture
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CommentThe man from the ministry
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鈥檚 what happened
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CommentWhy can鈥檛 we have boulangeries?
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鈥�
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CommentParty politics: Gus Alexander on overpriced party wall surveyors
Gus Alexander doesn鈥檛 like to get involved in spats over party walls. Scumbag neighbours he can deal with, but overpriced surveyors who think they鈥檙e auditioning for Boston Legal? Never
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CommentThe hard way: Gus Alexander on novating an architect
Transferring control of the architect from client to contractor can work fine. It can also make everyone鈥檚 life a lot more difficult 鈥� particularly the architect鈥檚
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CommentThe wrecking crew
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 鈥�
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CommentSelf-harming architects
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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CommentDesign and builders
So Cabe is going to vet public projects to make sure they don鈥檛 look completely awful. Well, that鈥檚 a good thing of course, but we should ask ourselves why it鈥檚 become necessary
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CommentOutrageous fortune
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 鈥�
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CommentThe new realism
The economic downturn isn鈥檛 without its consolations. It seems to be ushering in a new age of collaboration in construction and a more sober reckoning of what we鈥檙e about
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CommentThat was then, this is now
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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CommentThe uses of adversity
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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CommentIt all used to be so simple鈥�
鈥� 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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好色先生TVWayne Hemingway in Gateshead: Wimpey 脿 la mode
The Gus report 鈥斅營n 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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CommentTender is the blight
There鈥檚 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