May 2019: Issue 194

In the first of a new series of conversations with office property’s top people, Hines‘ Managing Director, Raj Rajput, tells it straight: office refurbishment is all about keeping rents up, especially if the competition is getting serious. David Thame reports.

We’ve come to Salford’s Exchange Quay (for those familiar with the area, you can’t have failed to notice it, seeing as it has a giant orange arrow literally pointing it out on the adjacent roundabout) to look at the reworking of Building 3. There is, however, one slight problem.

Created by multi-disciplinary designer, Orla Lawn, Spelk combines modern engineered materials with traditional techniques from textiles and woodwork.

Inspired by the ideology of sustainability and the amount of coffee related waste, That’s Caffeine is a material made directly from coffee grounds.

We have to be extremely honest and admit that we’re horribly late getting to our appointment at chapmanbdsp’s new working home on the edge of the City of London. We hoped we’d timed things perfectly, organising our meeting in the narrow window between our two Mixology awards judging sessions across in Clerkenwell.

Wires are a pain, and they literally chain you to the spot. So getting rid of them is a good thing. The wires that carry information have been hacked away at for years. Starting with ship communication, then broadcast radio and then WiFi. Now ethernet connections are becoming extinct, satellites bridge the oceans and the telephone network is really a broadband distribution, while landline phones get squeezed out by mobile devices. The days of information carrying wires are numbered, so that battle is almost won.