All Interviews articles – Page 29
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Features
Goodbye, Mr Chapman
Sir Sydney Chapman, the only qualified architect in the House of Commons and the man behind the controversial Portcullis House project, retired from parliament last week after 30 years as a Conservative MP – but not before enjoying a final cuppa in the Commons tearoom
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Features
Will Alsop
To lose three major projects, 50 staff and go into receivership in one year could finish many an architect, but for this man it’s simply a new beginning. He talks to us about his plans for the renamed Alsop & Partners.
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Features
Tony’s plans for Thomas
Thomas Vale has acquired the reputation of being Britain’s best small contractor. This is of course wrong. It’s really pretty big – and getting bigger. We met the man behind it; Mikael Gothage took his photo
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Features
City slicker
Ricky Burdett, the London School of Economics’ new professor of architecture and urbanism, is the capital’s leading educator, adviser and ambassador of urban design. We met him to discuss his plans to improve cities across Europe and beyond …
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Features
The Chalmers & Lyons show
Sir Michael Lyons and Lesley Chalmers are in charge of one of the best-kept secrets in regeneration – a public–private venture set up to transform the grimmest areas in England. They are also a great comedy double act.
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Features
Diarmuid Gavin
Don’t be fooled by the affable exterior – television’s most popular gardener is plotting a revolution in our own back yards. Here he lets us in on the secret and tries to recruit you as well.
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Features
John Redwood
After three years away from the front bench, the poster boy of the Thatcherite right is keen to demonstrate how a Tory government would make £35bn of efficiency savings – and gladden the hearts of the construction industry.
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Features
Big in Japan (and China, the USA, Spain, Italy, Germany…)
David Chipperfield has quietly built up a highly exportable architectural practice, with competition wins all over the world. Now, the UK portfolio is belatedly taking shape – if clients can stop project-managing for long enough
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Features
The messenger
Construction’s safety record never looks worse than in the living room of a bereaved family. Alan Ritchie knows – he’s been there too many times. The new general secretary of UCATT tells us about his plans to make employers and government listen.
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Features
Steve Morgan
With Liverpool still ignoring his advances, the former Redrow boss is turning his attention to a new land-purchase venture. We meet a man throwing himself into his work …
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Features
Second thoughts
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson’s very funny, very charming and highly critical account of Britain in the 1990s, made Britons look at themselves slightly differently. But what would he write if he took the same journey today?
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Features
The naked project manager
Philip Ashton PhD may be a reluctant televison star, but he’s happy to embrace the publicity Channel 4’s Bricking It has given young people in construction. We meet project management’s answer to Jamie Oliver.
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Features
So I changed my mind …
Peter Dixon is the man in charge of a £422m PFI hospital in London. He has also written in a national newspaper that hospital PFIs have been a ‘costly failure’. We invite him to explain himself – after which we get a second opinion from a woman with very definite ...
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Features
The case against
If Allyson Pollock is right, it won’t be long before PFI hospitals introduce extra charges for anaesthetic. We find out why.
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Features
Cutter’s way
John Oughton, the mandarin in charge of government procurement, is determined to slash the time and money spent on the bidding process. But can he overcome a creaky civil service and an overstretched construction industry?
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Features
Talking up a storm
Wates chief Paul Drechsler has been hired to shake up the century-old family business. And he just loves to natter about it. He tells Angela Monaghan all about framework deals, services, Dublin, PFI schools, his workers … and Eric Clapton.
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Features
Mr Holt & Mr Black
The chap on the left is the grand wizard who created Mears, the firm that never stops growing. The one on the right has six months to learn how to cast the same spell.
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Features
The ideal partner
John Rackstraw, chief executive of Pearce Group and a devotee of the Egan message, explains how he’s putting the principles of partnering and integrated supply chains into action
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Features
Talking balls with the minister
Phil Hope is charge of chivvying the industry into becoming energy efficient, sustainable and security conscious, while simultaneously championing IT and keeping the ODPM green. So a metaphor rather suggests itself, as we point out.
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Features
President Clinton
He may not yet be the international political force that Bill once was, but Colin Clinton knows how to use power to effect change – and not just at the ICE. We talk to him about his modernising agenda, globalisation and lawn mowing.