Savills, on behalf of Great Portland Estates plc (“GPE”), has sold the vacant freehold of Mortimer House, 37/41 Mortimer Street, London to a private investor for a price of £26.95 million. The office property, extending to circa 23,800 sq ft (2,211 sq m) is currently vacant, and benefits
Browser does not support script. Contact us The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has named Professor Florian Beigel as the winner of the 2014 RIBA Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education. This prestigious award is awarded biennially to an individual who has made a significant contribution to
We live in a time of great change for the construction industry and its skills requirements. The infrastructure pipeline is expanding, housebuilders are responding to the need for a million new homes by 2020, employers are developing new ways to meet their workforce needs and government reforms such as the
Savills, on behalf of Great Portland Estates plc (“GPE”), has sold the vacant freehold of Mortimer House, 37/41 Mortimer Street, London to a private investor for a price of £26.95 million. The office property, extending to circa 23,800 sq ft (2,211 sq m) is currently vacant, and benefits from consent for a triple B1/A1/A3 use on the ground and basement floors. The buyer is a new vehicle set up by hotelier Guy Ivesha, in joint venture with Cain Hoy, who plan to operate a premium work and lifestyle concept. Paul Cockburn, director in the Central London investment team at Savills, comments: “Despite having consents in place to undertake a comprehensive refurbishment project, we advised that to capitalise on the demand for vacant redevelopment oppportunies in the West End, the asset should be sold as as a refurbishment project“ The purchaser was advised by Colliers. Source link
Browser does not support script. Contact us The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has named Professor Florian Beigel as the winner of the 2014 RIBA Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education. This prestigious award is awarded biennially to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the ‘advancement of architectural education’ in a school of architecture anywhere in the world that offers courses validated by the RIBA. RIBA Vice-President Education and chair of the judging panel, Roz Barr said: “Congratulations to Professor Florian Beigel for receiving this award in recognition of his sustained influence on architectural education and on generations of students, architects, and fellow tutors. Over four decades of inspirational teaching, Florian Beigel has revealed an unparalleled commitment to the School of Architecture of the London Metropolitan University framed in entirely unique terms. His penetrating intelligence, generous spirit, and abundant talent as an architect make him a most deserving winner of the RIBA Annie Spink Award.” On receiving the news of the award, Florian Beigel said: “It is a real honour to be given this award and recognition for one’s role as an educator in architecture. To those whom have generously nominated me for this award and given their backing with such enthusiasm, thank you. “All through the years the aim has been to give the students a love and passion for architecture. “I am an architect that likes to build, and I believe that it is important that the architectural works that I do with my colleagues can offer insights to students. Our practice (design as research) informs the teaching, and the teaching informs the practice. In this way, there has always been a balance between practice, research and teaching. “I’d very much like to thank the many friends and colleagues who have collaborated with me and given their support in the Architecture Research Unit and the teaching through the years at the CASS. I’d particularly like to thank Philip Christou, whom I’ve taught together with and collaborated in practice for 30 years. Without him I could not have done it. It is for this reason that I’d like to dedicate this award to Philip.” ENDS Notes to editors For further press information contact Howard Crosskey in the RIBA Press Office: 020 7307 3761 howard.crosskey@riba.org. Florian Beigel’s involvement with the School of Architecture of London Metropolitan University dates back to his appointment as a design tutor in 1973 when the institution formed part of the Polytechnic of North London. His practice, the Architecture Research Unit (ARU), has operated out of the school since 1979 providing a pioneering model for the integration of professional and educational activity. For the past 41 years, ARU’s work has been published internationally and won numerous awards while many of Florian’s former students have gone on to establish distinguished careers in their own right. Guided by a poetic and politicized preoccupation to cultivate the city as a place of social encounter and charged spatial definition, Florian’s work both as a teacher and as the director of ARU has always been directed towards developing strategies by which a culture of public life might be sustained. If that endeavour initially presented a particularly radical challenge to Britain’s urban culture, it went on to shape generations of architects and find influence across the world, notably in South Korea where he has realised a series of projects and where former students and collaborators went on to operate practices of their own. The 2014 Annie Spink judging panel included: Chair: Roz Barr (Roz Barr Architects and RIBA Vice-President Education) Tamsin Hanke (Part 2 graduate Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL; RIBA President’s Dissertation Medallist 2013) Deborah Howard (Professor Emerita of Architectural History and Director of Research in the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, University of Cambridge) Joseph Rykwert (architectural historian and critic; Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania; RIBA Royal Gold Medallist 2014) John Tuomey (O’Donnell + Tuomey; Professor of Architectural Design, University College Dublin; RIBA Royal Gold Medallist 2015) The £10,000 Annie Spink award is financed by the Annie Spink Trust Fund, which was established in 1974 by architect Herbert Spink FRIBA. He bequeathed the trust as a lasting memorial to his wife Annie, who died in 1938, and conceived it as an honour for the ‘advancement of architectural education’. For further information about the award, please visit www.architecture.com/RIBA/Becomeanarchitect/Award-winningwork/RIBAAnnieSpinkAward.aspx. For further funding information please visit the RIBA Education pages at www.architecture.com or contact John-Paul Nunes, Head of Education Projects on 020 7307 3604 or john-paul.nunes@riba.org Posted on Monday 1st December 2014 Source link
We live in a time of great change for the construction industry and its skills requirements. The infrastructure pipeline is expanding, housebuilders are responding to the need for a million new homes by 2020, employers are developing new ways to meet their workforce needs and government reforms such as the apprenticeship levy are transforming the skills landscape. CITB plays a crucial role in driving and responding to change on many fronts, including funding. We are investing in skills and expect strong returns. Our grants scheme has helped employers over many years, but it needs to change from being a vehicle that simply returns levy to employers to one that makes strategic investments in skills. More to do This year we have supported programmes that will have a major impact on the key issues facing construction, as well as smaller project grants to transform training for individual SMEs. But we need to do more. Our grants scheme must have a laser-like focus on helping employers to build a qualified workforce with the cross-industry skills that will benefit construction as a whole, now and in the future. This includes looking for new avenues of supporting employers, who will be in the driving seat on apprenticeships, but also paying for the petrol. At a time when further education will see great change, we must find new ways of ensuring that employers can access the right training provision, particularly for specialist skills. This is a big agenda, and throughout the rest of this year we will be talking with our industry about our vision of how to deliver on it. What is clear is that our funding will need to be more targeted, driven by robust evidence of where the needs are greatest, and underpinned by well-defined criteria. For example, the programmes we support must always be led by in-scope employers or the federations that represent them. Again, we expect return on our investment. So we will ensure the levy funds are invested in projects that have the potential to scale up, led by organisations that have the financial staying power to make a difference to our industry for years to come. Difficult decisions We also need to avoid financing programmes where public funding is already available. In some cases, this may mean tough choices. It may mean resisting the emotional pull of certain projects that have aims to which we can all sign up, but fail to demonstrate both that they are meeting employers’ key needs and can make a visible difference over the longer term. Our industry faces a massive skills challenge in the coming years, but we can give ourselves a fighting chance by making the right investments. About the author James Wates is the Chairman of CITB and has worked in the construction industry most of his life, starting on site as a schoolboy during holidays. He joined Wates Construction as a management trainee, progressing through line management to running sites before taking on a general manager role in 1989. Since then he has progressed to Chairman of the main Group Board. He was awarded the CBE in January 2012 for Services to Construction and the Charitable sector. Source link
