Every last box on the Retirement Chart has been duly ticked off and I leave P+HS today in the safe hands of Joe Biggs and his fellow directors. P+HS is a great team of people and delivers exemplary service to all our clients, and that’s what my time at P+HS has been all about. The last two years have been tough but that service enables us to grow and develop. We’re not out of the woods yet and, more than ever, the team needs to pull together and everyone in the firm needs to focus on maintaining and improving our service. I know you can do it.

I shall stay in touch by supporting our work in Saudi Arabia, as a director of DMI Healthcare. I shall also be working with Mark Glatman of Abstract Securities to grow and develop the Abstract Healthcare portfolio; I hope in these ways to be able to help P+HS maintain its workload and keep in touch with your progress.

The last twenty-seven years have been great and I haven’t regretted the path I chose for one moment. I am humbled by your generosity and value your friendship, humour and, above all, your absolute dedication to the firm.

Bon voyage

Chris

As part of BREEAM and guidance from ‘The art of good health – Using visual arts in healthcare’ document, I have created a set of A3 presentation sheets with Artists that have worked with P+HS in the past and a range of new artist have been created for future reference. It’s a starting point and one that can help for future projects.

These presentation sheets have been created following input from the LINAC arts coordinator Mr. Chris Potter and James Gordon.

Artist in this project:
Shona Kitchen
Julia Barton
Kisa Kawakami

Artist:
Shelagh Wakely

Arists:
David Harben
Blow Zone
GA Aquatic

These are just some examples of what we proposed to our client at Nottingham City Campus for the new LINAC Facility.

For those in P+HS interested in seeing all the presentation sheets please access our intranet and check out Operations / Technical page.

I’ve been wanting to look at this Urban Splash scheme for quite a while and a trip to see Michael Bourne’s Swan Lake at the Lowry enabled Mrs P and I to take in some architecture. Chimney Pot Park is a great example of how to make housing regeneration into Architecture. Very clever upside-down housing conversion of beautifully preserved streets in Salford. The rear alleys are turned into undercover and secure parking, with garden decks above. All fully occupied and the remaining streets just waiting for the end of the recession. Radical structural alterations see the roofs replaced by a steel structure, incorproating the kitchen hung inside the roof. All in all, very uplifting housing.

Great news! Financial Close has been achieved for the Doncaster NHS LIFT health centre in Conisbrough, with start on site anticipated in March.

The facility will serve as a Neighbourhood Health Centre within the historic town of Conisbrough, which lies about six miles south west of Doncaster.

This is one of several LIFT buildings planned to provide health services as well as contribute to the regeneration of Doncaster.

One of the main challenges was in trying to strike a balance between providing a contemporary stand alone health centre which is also reflective of the local character. This was achieved through numerous community consultations which assisted us in the selection of materials.

Particular to the project is the design of the building fabric to provide thermal mass for night-time cooling as part of the natural ventilation strategy.

Circulation within the building is kept clear and simple with internal spaces planned around a shared central area with double height spaces, plenty of natural light, views out and artwork.

Well, to those who recognise the title of the post, this AutoCAD error message may be one you’ve come accross before, however, for the benefit of all; i’ll go into a little more detail.

Working on some drawings recently, i found that when it came to plotting out the layout, the “Plot style table (pen assignments)” were missing! (As the following image of the plot window shows, to the top-right)

One reason suggested for this is 3rd party xrefs altering the plot style settings, but i’m open on being corrected if that’s not the right answer. Anyway, the fix is a lot more straightforward than trying to figure out the reason. All you have to do is type “CONVERTPSTYLES” as a command type in either model or paper space and you get the following message.

On this step the work has all been done for me; the handy little pop-up message explains it all… Once you’ve hit “OK” the command then runs the fix and… voila! it’s done. Now continue as you would normally and go to plot the drawing; you should see the following plot window with all the plot styles back to normal!

Select the desired plot style and there you have it! All courtesy of Tom (the genius) Potter. So please forward all thanks onto him.

Problem:

If you’ve ever had problems within AutoCAD, while using drawings with xrefs; then this is hopefully a step toward solving your miseries. Common symptoms of this effect are; slow processing speed, delayed response to command types, agonising movement of the cursor when adjusting viewports, etc, etc.

Knowledge:

“When a file contains excess scales, performance may be negatively affected. Eventually, the file may become unusable. To use the file, the extra scales must be removed” (www.cadtutor.net). There is a command type within AutoCAD that repairs affected files by removing these unwanted excess scales.

Procedure:

Have the drawing open in your AutoCAD application and then type the following command: ‘-scalelistedit’

Next it asks: Enter option? Type ‘R’ for Reset

Finally it asks: Reset scale list to defaults? Then type ’Y’ for Yes

Further tips:

It’s a good idea at this point to also Purge & Audit the drawing in order to optimise the file.

Simply type and hit enter for the following: ’PU’ for Purge – and then select ‘Purge All’ until nothing is left to purge. ‘AUDIT’ for audit – and then type ‘Y’ for yes when it asks if you want to Fix any errors detected.

Housing minister John Healey said the fee freeze would save developers £23 million this year, money which can be reinvested into new projects that will sustain the UK construction sector through what is predicted to be a stale year for the economy.

Announcing the freeze, Healey said: ‘At a time when investing in new developments is difficult, and when access to funding is hard, it would be wrong to increase the costs of developers who will help drive economic recovery.

‘I recognise that as we start to work through economic recovery, we need to do what we can to keep builders on construction sites and keep plans on the table.

‘It is important that we react to the economic circumstances and listen to the needs of people, industry and developers and we have done just that.’

From the Architects Journal 21 January 2010.

Wallpaper that can glow with light and bendable flat-panel screens are a step closer thanks to research into organic LEDs (OLEDs), which are widely hailed as the next generation of environmentally friendly lighting technology. See the Guardian report here.

Turley Associates, with whom we work on planning matters, attended a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference this week, hosted by Lexington Communications. The guest speaker was Bob Neill MP, the Shadow Minister for Local Government and Planning. Following various announcements and comments in the press by Party members, he provided an update on how the Conservative Party intends to approach the planning system, should it gain power at the next election. This approach has potentially wide-ranging implications for the development industry.

• Neill confirmed that the planning system is likely to see further change, to refocus its operation to accord with the Conservative “localism” agenda
• As previously announced by the party, Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) would be abolished, removing strategic development and land requirements with the intention that these be determined locally
• The requirement for a 5 year supply of housing land would be retained, although the Party will offer clarification on how this calculation should be undertaken to ensure consistency. How the local requirement would be decided, in the absence of Regional guidance, was not addressed
• Local development would be incentivised through a commitment to Local Authorities that any development in their area would produce direct funding through the retention of Council Tax (at 100% for open market housing and 125% for affordable housing) and business rates (at 100%) at a local level, for a period of 6 years. This would replace central funding as a direct incentive for allowing and encouraging development in the area. The funds would not be ring-fenced
• There was no mention of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)
• The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) would also abolished, to be replaced with a system based around the existing Planning Inspectorate and Ministerial control
• National Planning Statements (NPS’s) would be retained as a clear statement to help guide nationally significant projects, and to provide political accountability for major decisions. The agenda of reducing delays in the provision of major infrastructure would be retained
• Reducing delays would also be a wider theme in the new system, with the suggestion being made that sanctions may be introduced for key Statutory Consultees (Highways Agency, Environment Agency, etc) who unnecessarily or unduly delay planning applications
• A commitment was made to retain the elements of the system that work and to further examine how smaller-scale applications can be removed from Planning Officer’s schedules, to allow them to focus on important schemes where their skills are needed
• Finally, the assurance was given that transitional arrangements would be put in place to make sure that further delays would not result from the changes being set out
  

More than 40 locations are being considered as sites for new homes to ease a shortage of affordable housing in the Yorkshire Dales.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) received 118 suggestions of potential sites after an appeal to landowners. It has drawn up a shortlist of 44, which are now being investigated. The YDNPA said the response to its appeal had been “very good” but it wanted more suggestions. It specifically wants to hear about potential sites in the Grassington, Hawes, Reeth and Sedbergh areas. The YDNPA’s housing working group will eventually draw up a draft housing development plan which will go out to public consultation.

Housing officer Peter Stockton said: “The final list will depend on the response from technical consultees like the highways authority, the Environment Agency, our archaeologists and ecologists.

“It will probably be a lot shorter than the 40 or so sites currently going for further investigation.”

When it made its appeal to landowners in January, the YDNPA said the lack of affordable housing in the national park was a “serious problem”.

It said local people were being forced out of the area because of high house prices.

From BBC News Website 28 September 2009

We are finally nearing the end of the Brompton Recreation Association job, a project that has been in the office

for over 20 years…..yes 20 years!

For those of you that have not worked on the project or for those of you that have and are interested on how it has turned out here is a picture of the (almost) finished article.

If you would like to see any more images there is a plethora on the Stokesley server under job 1433.

HBN 11-01 Facilities for Primary and Community Care has now been issued. This superceeds any previous guidance on primary care, and provides information on new room sizes which have changed significantly from the previous guidance.

It also provides a new direction to establishing sizes of primary care premises, finally superceding the old “Red Book” [which really ceased to be relevant in 2003!]. Available from the KIP site, or via Technical Indexes for subscribers.

P+HS have a working spreadsheet for calculation of consulting and treatment rooms, in accordance with the methodology outline in the guide.

Diana Cole, our Marketing Manager, has just achieved Chartered Marketer status.

Chartered Marketer Status is the benchmark for highly skilled marketers.Chartered Marketers status demonstrates ongoing commitment and competency. Many marketers have a relevant marketing qualification, but Chartered Marketers must ensure that they maintain and develop the currency of their marketing skills and knowledge. Chartered Marketer status is an effective measurement of business competency and expertise, which will ultimately contributes to better business performance. It is also a reassurance that the marketer will be ethical, experienced and can demonstrate first class marketing skills to give employers improved business advantage

Well done Diana!

The housing industry and architects have welcomed the London Housing Design Guide, published last week by London mayor Boris Johnson’s office, despite some feeling that new proposals on space standards do not go far enough.

Read more in the AJ online article by Christopher Sell.