Chinese developer BSB has already built a 30 storey tower in 15 days, now it's looking to build a 220 storey building, over 838m tall with a floor area over a million square meters in only 90 days using modular technology allowing upto 5 storeys to be built every day.

The project is due to commence late in 2012 for completion in March 2013.

The country is now in the middle of its austerity measures and bigs savings need to be made, but the loss of key staff in many local authorites is going to have a massive affect on the already battered construction industry. Here in Manchester, several leading local authorites are slashing the number of planning and building control staff. Not exactly front page news, but, if you consider the fact that construction accounts for a large percentage of the countries GDP and growth, any bottle neck will severly affect development.

In short the simple answer is "YES, you may complete your own fire risk assessment". Some professioanls have the opinion that all risk assessments are best carried out by people who know their business, people who know the way the business is run and by people who are intimate with the manufacturing processes. The difficulty comes with matching that knowledge and experience with the knowledge and experience necessary to produce a meaningful fire risk assessment

Google have outgrown the Googleplex, and have commissioned German Architectural firm Ingenhoven to design a new sustainable home in California. Construction is set to commence this year, with a spokesperson confirming that they have asked German architectural firm Ingenhoven for “the most green, sustainable building possible.”

It feels like only yesterday when we were discussing SAP 2009, having only been implemented in October 2010 the latest form of SAP is only just starting to have an impact on building design and design practices like GreenSky have been busy working through the most economic design solutions.

Choosing a good builder is probably the most stressful part of a project. The thought of paying someone you've never met, huge sums of money can bring on sleepless nights and a cold sweat. Your home is probaly your largest asset and employing the wrong builder can end up being very costly in more ways than one. So how do you protect yourself? There's no golden goose, even taking time over the selection of your builder doesn't guarantee everything will be great, but it will give you some confidence and make the builder realsie that you've vetted him properly...... so where do you start!

BRE, the UK’s leading centre of expertise on the built environment, has issued new guidance on minimising air infiltration in buildings.

BRE, also looks at the need for effective ventilation as offices and public buildings become more airtight.
The report "Airtightness in Commercial and Public Buildings", published by BRE Trust, owner of the BRE research establishment, provides guidance on the regulations governing airtightness in new and refurbished buildings.

Plans for Fosters’ new Apple HQ have recently been unveiled by the Cupertino, California, planning department.

The scheme incorporates glass whcih will have to be specially developed to cope with the building’s circular design, which is intende to facilitate natural ventilation.

The 260,000sq m of offices and R&D space, research facilities of 28,000sq m, a 1,000-seat auditorium and a gym will be housed in the doughnut-shaped building.

The Government's new emphasis on neighbourhood planning and localism will require planners to change some traditional ways of working in favour of innovation, collaboration and passing down power.

That was decentralisation minister Greg Clark's key message when he clarified the Government's aspirations for a new tier of plan-making at a meeting organised by the Planning Officers Society