“New ways of working” is a buzz phrase among public property people who want to make their office spaces more efficient. But what does the concept mean in practice?
For Birmingham City Council, a recent challenge has been to accommodate workers from changing social care teams of differing sizes in a …

In 2004, a lot of people in Newcastle didn’t know that the City Library was a library. From the outside, it was poorly lit and had few windows for people to see inside.
The council felt that it was in serious need of redevelopment, and that it needed to offer Newcastle’s …

Hanham Hall near Bristol has been hailed as England’s first zero-carbon residential development. It is a former hospital site set in 6.6ha, features a Grade 2 Listed building, and includes 195 homes that conform to the top level of the Code for Sustainable Homes.
To see the brief, and …

Lichfield District Council is in an historic, rural location with big public demand for visible planning decisions. There is also a high volume of applications for the area’s size.
To manage the planning department’s workload and communicate with local stakeholders, a user-friendly website supplying helpful information is vital. Here’s how they …

In September 2006, Sefton Borough Council had an office requirement of 80,000 sq ft in the town of Bootle. They were looking for space at under £9 per sq ft, and put out a tender notice in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Nightingale Estates had a building of exactly …

At the turn of this century, much of the retail and office accommodation behind Regent Street’s Grade II listed grand façades was low quality, and the local spaces were often dirty and unwelcoming. That was the verdict of owners the Crown Estate, at least.
They said the interiors did little to …

Birmingham City Council is refurbishing the offices of 9,000 council workers. It wants to show them how their workplaces will look.
Its Business Transformation property programme aims to modernise workspaces to encourage more flexible working and introduce better ICT services, with a view to saving £100m over a 25 year period.
To …

Bristol Cathedral Choir School is Bristol’s most oversubscribed school. It sits on a small inner city site with a mixture of historic buildings from the 12th to the 20th centuries. The school needed to expand, with its population set to double in the next few years because it had just …

Transport for London began its relocation from small, disjointed offices to larger ones in 2006, when it moved into the Palestra building in Southwark. The next move was to make the property more sustainable and live up to the Greater London Authority’s target of reducing CO2 emissions by 60% …

Accrington’s Market Hall is a listed building that used to suffer from underinvestment, leading to a backlog of repairs and wasted floor space. The benefits of it being publicly owned were in doubt. But in 2009, owners Hyndburn Council won funding to redevelop the marketplace. The cash came from the …