Diary has always been appreciative of the ability of public art to elevate our built environment. So we welcome all news of sculptures from developers. But when said sculptures have puns in their actual names, saving us a job, that’s a guaranteed way to make it on to the page. Congratulations, then, to U+I on its new installation at its Circus Street development in Brighton. It is, we are told, “the most complex and ambitious sculpture to date” by artist Alex Chinneck, who is known for “creating architectural sculptures that play with perception”, including a sliding house in Margate, a hovering stone building on Covent Garden Piazza, an inverted electricity pylon on Greenwich Peninsula and an unzipping building in Milan. This new sculpture takes the form of a spiral staircase “spectacularly springing apart in three directions” across the facade of one of Circus Street’s buildings. And, while not much use in the event of a fire, hopefully it is one external staircase that will prove uplifting to passers-by. After all, not for nothing have they named it “A spring in your step”.
What’s in a name?
Countryside Properties is no more. No, don’t worry, it hasn’t gone bust. But it has completed its transformation into Countryside Partnerships. The rebrand, along with a shiny new website – well, a new website address at any rate – will no doubt be exactly what investors need to restore their confidence in the firm, after boss Iain McPherson abruptly stepped down, revenues plunged and the share price tanked. Never fear! A name tweak will fix all that! The new website – countrysidepartnerships.com – would hold all investor relations content, etc “with effect from 28 January 2022”. Dutifully, Diary paid a visit, shortly after Countryside made the announcement on 31 January. Only what did we find? A placeholder ad from names.co.uk, reading “Don’t let this space go to waste. Make countrysidepartnerships.com work hard for you!” Great advice. As is “activate the site before you tell the market next time”. Seems to have worked, though. Within an hour of the announcement, the share price was up 1.28% to just over £3 a share. That’ll make up for the fall from £5.70 per share a mere six months ago. Ironically, by the time the site had gone live, the share price had fallen back down to £2.96.
Walk away
Turning down work is a tough call, not least during the volatility of the pandemic. But in this week’s EG Interview, McLaren Property founder Kevin Taylor says that pricing pressures during the past year meant his team had to do just that. The construction company dropped out of the running for a £180m project early last year because the potential customer had asked for it to be priced without factoring in any inflation. Taylor and colleagues, who were already concerned by the outlook for prices, were horrified. An unnamed rival wasn’t. “It was a four-year project, and a competitor has taken that on with zero inflation [factored in],” says Taylor. “We calculated the inflation on that project now will be to the tune of £30m. And they’d done it for a fixed price back in Q1.” He still sounds bemused. But better that than explaining a big dent in the bottom line.
A tall tale
It isn’t unusual for areas to have height restrictions on new buildings. In Athens you can’t build anything that might obstruct a view of the Parthenon. In Rome no building can be taller than St Peter’s Basilica. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the labs at York Biotech Campus are not allowed to grow higher than the trees. They have the same rule in Bali, after all – no building taller than a coconut palm, giving a maximum of 15m. But hold on a minute! This is a cutting-edge R&D facility we are talking about, right? Surely one of these guys is a botanist? How long before someone, feeling the need to expand, puts some effort into supersizing the flora?
The show must go on
It has been a long time since Diary jumped on a flight to MIPIM – almost three years in fact – so a checklist seems in order. Passport, check. Selection of jaunty face masks, check. Lateral flow tests, check. Respectable clothing not worn in years, check. Alka-Seltzer, check. Understudy, ch… Sorry, what? Yes, that’s right, don’t forget to book in the understudy. Diary has it on good authority that an understudy will be the must-have accessory for anyone heading to MIPIM and hoping to speak on a panel or podium this year. After all, it’s best to be prepared for when that single red line turns to two. But who will take the gig? In the theatre world, the role of understudy is a thankless task. You learn all the lines, rehearse the scenes, perfect all the moves, inhabit the character – and then sit in your dressing room night after night, waiting for that guy off Game of Thrones to catch a cold or eat a bad prawn. What could possibly persuade someone to jet off to Cannes to simply sit around in the sun doing nothing all day? Hang on…
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