Cording Real Estate Group, represented by international real estate advisor Savills, has let office space at Bridgewater House on Whitworth Street, Manchester to Hainan Airlines. The Chinese firm has agreed a new five-year lease for 2,100 sq ft (195 sq m) at the Grade II-listed building and will pay a rent of £16.50 per sq ft (£178 per sq m).  Bridgewater House offers 180,000 sq ft (16,722 sq m) of high quality office accommodation across 10 storeys and still features many of its original characteristics including cast iron columns and exposed brickwork.  On the ninth floor, 17,000 sq ft (1,579 sq m) of open plan office space has recently been refurbished and there are further plans to reform and extend the reception area. Daniel Barnes, associate in the office agency team at Savills, comments: “This landmark building combines contemporary business space with original features and a very well-connected location.  We are pleased to have completed this deal with Hainan Airlines and look forward to securing additional occupiers for the building.” Hainan Airlines was unrepresented.  Savills is joint letting agent at the property with OBI. Source link

Amid the post-Brexit uncertainty, the specialist property sector has stood firm, particularly the retirement and health care sectors, which are not just weathering the storm, they are prospering. The post Healthy, wealthy and wise appeared first on Estates Gazette.com. Source link

Volatile workload index remains in positive territory Growth in architecture industry still driven by housing sector The RIBA Future Trends Workload Index decreased in February yet remained in firmly positive territory (down to +21, from +29 in January). Large practices (51+ staff) were by far the most positive (balance figure +50). Small practices (1–10 staff, balance figure +25) and medium-sized practices (11–50 staff, balance figure +19) also continue to predict increases in workload. Practices in the North of England were the most confident this month (balance figure +30); those in Wales and the West (+15) and Scotland (0) were more cautious about future workload levels. The private housing sector forecast remains the strongest area of growth with a marginal increase to +31 in February 2016 (up from +30 in January). Ground was lost in both the commercial sector workload forecast (+10 in February, down from +14 in January) and public sector workload forecast (+1 in February, down from +7 in January). Breaking into positive territory for the first time since November 2015, the community sector forecast increased to +2 in February. The RIBA Future Trends Staffing Index fell, standing at +7 in February 2016 (down from +10 in January). Medium-sized and large practices were both optimistic about taking on additional staff during the next quarter (balance figures +30 and +33 respectively). Small practices were less confident about future staffing levels (balance figure +8 in February). RIBA Executive Director Members, Adrian Dobson, said: “The Workload Index remains in firmly positive territory, despite some volatility in recent months. This is perhaps more related to general economic uncertainties rather than factors specific to the market for architectural services. The majority of responding practices predict an increase in workloads in the medium term.” “A number of practices have reported a more stable pipeline of longer term, larger scale projects. Private housing remains the best performing sector in our survey, showing how central this has been to continuing growth in architects’ workloads.” ENDS Notes to editors: 1. For further press information contact Callum Reilly in the RIBA press office: callum.reilly@riba.org 020 7307 3757 2. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) champions better buildings, communities and the environment through architecture and our members.  Architecture.com Follow @RIBA on Twitter for regular updates www.twitter.com/RIBA 3. Completed by a mix of small, medium and large firms based on a geographically representative sample, the RIBA Future Trends Survey was launched in January 2009 to monitor business and employment trends affecting the architects’ profession. 4. The Future Trends Survey is carried out by the RIBA in partnership with the Fees Bureau. Results of the survey, including a full graphical analysis, are published each month at: http://www.architecture.com/RIBA/Professionalsupport/FutureTrendsSurvey.aspx 5. To participate in the RIBA Future Trends Survey, please contact the RIBA Practice Department on 020 7307 3749 or email practice@riba.org. The survey takes approximately five minutes to complete each month, and all returns are independently processed in strict confidence. 6. The definition for the workload balance figure is the difference between those expecting more work and those expecting less. A negative figure means more respondents expect less work than those expecting more work. This figure is used to represent the RIBA Future Trends Workload Index, which for February 2016 was +21. 7. The definition for the staffing balance figure is the difference between those expecting to employ more permanent staff in the next three months and those expecting to employ fewer. A negative figure means more respondents expect to employ fewer permanent staff. This figure is used to represent the RIBA Future Trends Staffing Index, which for February 2016 was +7.   Posted on Thursday 31st March 2016 Source link

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) today (Thursday 24 September) announced the 2016 RIBA International Fellowships which will be awarded to nine non-UK architects, of whom two are in partnership. The RIBA’s 2015 International Fellowships are:• Kees Christiaanse – KCAP, Netherlands• Mario Cucinella – MC Architects, Italy• Bjarke Ingels – BIG, Denmark• Rick Joy – Rick Joy Architects, USA• Brian MacKay-Lyons – MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, Canada• Peter Märkli – Studio Märkli, Switzerland• Peter Stutchbury – Peter Stutchbury Architecture, Australia• José Antonio Martínez Lapeña & Elias Torres – Spain The lifetime honour allows individual recipients to use the initials Int FRIBA after their name. The 2016 RIBA International Fellowships will be presented at a special event at the RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, W1 on 1 February 2016. ENDS Notes to editors: 1. For further press information contact Callum Reilly in the RIBA Press Office: 020 7307 3757 callum.reilly@riba.org 2. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) champions better buildings, communities and the environment through architecture and our members. Visit www.architecture.com and follow us on Twitter. 3. The 2015 RIBA Honours Committee who selected the 2016 Fellows was chaired by RIBA President Jane Duncan with Sir Peter Cook, Neil Gillespie OBE, Victoria Thornton OBE and the 2015 Royal Gold Medallist, John Tuomey. 4. RIBA International Fellows 2016 citations: KEES CHRISTIAANSE, architect and urban planner, Netherlands – nominated by Louisa Hutton Kees Christiaanse is a Dutch architect and urban planner whose work personifies the complementary nature of these disciplines: his architecture is rooted in the city and his urban planning is very much design-based. In his role as artistic director of the Dutch Building Department – a post he held in the mid 90s – Christiaanse combined the two disciplines harmoniously, fostering the Dutch urban renaissance of the late 20th century. Following nine years with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, six of them as partner, in 1989 Christiaanse then founded his own office – KCAP Architects&Planners – in Rotterdam. The office has expanded to Zurich and Shanghai, and is currently forming a base in Singapore. KCAP has been involved with significant large-scale urban projects throughout Europe – including the Royal Docks (with Maccreanor Lavington), the post-Olympic Park in London, and the world-renowned HafenCity in Hamburg. He is now particularly active with university campuses and knowledge clusters, amongst other projects. Throughout his career Christiaanse has fruitfully combined office practice with both teaching and research. From 1996 to 2003 he was a professor of architecture and urban planning at the Technical University of Berlin; currently he holds the Chair of the Institute for Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – or ETH – in Zürich. Since 2010 Christiaanse has been programme leader of the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, a research programme developed between the ETH and Singapore’s University of Technology and Design whose goal is to develop ways to approach sustainable urban futures for cities with an Asian perspective. In his worldwide activities of lecturing, writing, and teaching and in his engagement with various complex urban assignments, Christiaanse campaigns for an understanding of the city as an open system, encouraging city governments – while aiming for high density, mixed-tenure and multi-centred solutions – to view urban planning as a three-dimensional, layered activity and to adopt structural frameworks that allow for change and incremental development. It is for his profound thinking and creative, responsible work at the interface of architecture and urbanism, and his understanding of the synergies between design, knowledge, strategy and process management, that the RIBA is awarding Kees Christiaanse International Fellowship. MARIO CUCINELLA, Italy – nominated by Peter Clegg The Italian architect Mario Cucinella decidedly ticks the sustainability box. The firm’s solid experience in architectural design is backed up by an emphasis placed on the importance of energy matters and environmental issues. The team also majors in urban regeneration, in industrial design and technological research. Through collaboration with universities and the research programmes of the European Commission these lessons are fed back into the practice. Cucinella wins international competitions and awards for buildings all round the world. He first set up the practice in Paris in 1992, then started up the Bologna office in 1999, where he employs a team of architects and engineers from many countries. Between 1998 and 2006 he taught at the Faculty of Architecture in Ferrara, Italy, and since 2004 he has been an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham. In 2013 he was Guest Professor in Emerging Technologies at the Technische Universitat in Munich, while in 2014 he was Guest Professor at Architectural Faculty Federico II, Naples. Cucinella regularly lectures in Italy and abroad. He is currently Director in the Scientific Committee of PLEA (Passive and Low Energy Architecture). He works as a tutor with Renzo Piano on the project G124 for the regeneration of Italy’s suburbs. In 2012 he also founded Building Green Future, a non-profit organization that brings together the two major strands of his thinking, promoting sustainable development through green architecture and urban regeneration. Among the practice’s most significant projects are: The SIEEB – Sino-Italian Ecological and Energy Efficient Building – Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; the new Civic Offices of Bologna; the CSET – Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies – The University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China; the new headquarters of 3M ITALY Milan; the project of Regional Agency for the Environment ARPA in Ferrara; a Kuwait School in Gaza, developed in partnership with UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) The firm has won many national and international awards, in particular for its urban and its green projects. These include a Green Building Award at MIPIM for the building in Milan and a Premio Architettura prize for the masterplan for the rehabilitation of areas of Corso Martyrs of Liberty in Catania. BJARKE INGELS, Denmark – nominated by Stephen Hodder Danish architect Bjarke Ingels’s practice BIG has come of age and is now working at a truly global scale. He