Home improvement guru, Sarah Beeny
…having a TV crew on site to film your project?
That’s the exciting prospect faced by chartered building company Ryan’s CDM, whose bungalow renovation project will feature in a new TV show fronted by home improvement guru Sarah Beeny.
The six-part series, to be aired in October, focuses on ambitious home renovation projects. The first will record Ryan’s progress as it extends a single-storey bungalow to two storeys to enable three generations of the same family to live together under one roof. Filming for the one-hour show started last month and will continue for up to six months.
So what’s it like having a TV crew on site? Ryan’s director Lawrence Fenwick says: “Interesting but time-consuming. Often to get the best shot at the right angle they ask us to perform a job several times or place a window in a skip three times. We hope it won’t effect our programme too much. The crew are nice though and Sarah Beeny is a great laugh.”
…ensure your site isn’t targeted by urban adventurers?
On the south bank of the Thames, Brookfield Multiplex is building the St George Tower, a 181m circular high-rise of flats, each with a winter garden. The project has received little publicity, perhaps because it’s comprehensively out-ranked by the 310m Shard at London Bridge. But it has attracted Keitei the urban adventurer, who claims in a blog posting to have accessed the site last November with a friend – hence the grainy shots of figures on what could be the building’s 18th floor (above). We haven’t verified the story but trust Brookfield’s security team has checked it out.
…using Twitter to link with other construction types in your area?
Committed Twitter fans can now track down other construction professionals in their area. Using www.architectmap.net Twitter users can share their location and company details via an interactive online map. The free service, which has about 1,000 registered users, enables visitors to register their location, Twitter account and personal details. They can pinpoint the locations of architects, contractors, graduates or manufacturers across the globe via the website or iphone app.
“Our concept was to create a map of architects using Twitter,” says Su Butcher, architect-turned-social media consultant who set up the site with Davis Langdon director Mark Schumann. “But the concept soon expanded to include contractors, QSs, manufacturers – anyone in construction who wants to be part of a local network.”
…les benefits très formidables d’un apprentice foreign exchange?
C’est bon, n’est-ce pas? S’il vous plait, excuse mon outrageous French accent! Yuill Homes a dit “bienvenue chez nous” to a group of French apprentices at the site of the Cecil Court Development en Hartlepool.
Les apprentices Françaises are part of a group of 18 trainee bricklayers from Les Compagnon du Devoir in Albi, near Toulouse. They were keen to learn more about bricklaying en Angleterre pour trois semaines.
Si vous voulez broaden your horizons, peut-être vous pouvez sign up to a similar exchange programme? It was developed by Hartlepool College de Further Education with funding from the European Community Leonardo da Vinci Mobility Programme. Au revoir, my English chums!
