One ‘Oarsome’ Expedition

August 27, 2014 nickrileyarchitect Leave a comment

Two young men, one rowing boat, and a non-stop unsupported trip across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Salcombe!

Every year we head down to Salcombe in Devon for our family summer holiday. This year I spotted a distinctive looking rowing boat out on the water. After a bit of searching I discovered ‘Team Ocean Valour‘; two young local adventurers who are planning an epic rowing expedition next May (2015). Their adventure has a compelling story so I contacted Tom Rainey and Sam Coombs to find out a bit more, and offered to help raise their profile a bit by writing a blog…

Their challenge is for the pair of them to cross the North Atlantic, from New York to Salcombe, in a rowing boat. Their objective is to be the youngest ever team to row from mainland USA to the mainland UK, entirely unsupported. To give some context to their mission, it’s a crossing which has been attempted around 60 times and completed by just 22 (with 5 crews lost at sea!) in 118 years of records. By compassion there have been over 5000 successful summits of Mount Everest.

The idea emerged to raise funds for The Brain Tumour Charity, an organisation particularly close to Tom’s heart after sadly losing his father Luke in late 2012. The guys also wanted to use the row to raise awareness of the growing North Atlantic Garbage Patch; an area of man-made debris which stretches hundreds of square kilometers, with over 200,000 pieces of debris per square km. This is largely plastics which never dissolve and have a significant detrimental impact on the life of seabirds and marine mammals.

These two graduates are in their early twenties and have spent their whole life on/ around water. They studied Marine Environment at University in Plymouth and have represented GB sailing around the world. They are also surfers, ultra marathon runners and extreme white water kayakers. It’s safe to assume these guys don’t do things by halves!

I met Tom last weekend and had a tour around their amazing £45k rowing boat, purpose built by ocean rowing specialists Sea Sabre. The trip will cover 3800 miles and they will experience freezing conditions, winds of up to 80mph and waves equivalent to seven-storey buildings! This is one seriously hardcore 2+ month long Ice Bucket Challenge…in a rowing boat!

The boat is pretty basic really, but has some important essentials…

It has the latest Communications and GPS/ Navigation kit which will help them navigate and be seen on the Ocean.
There’s solar panels for power and a water machine can convert sea water into drinking water.
Speakers have been built into central area so they can play music from iPods.
They have a Sea Anchor which is like a parachute. This will help them from drifting off course in bad weather.
The sleeping area is Bijou, but adequate for both of them to fit in. However they’ll be doing a constant 2 hour rotation most of the time for rowing.

I really admire what these guys are doing, it’s a genuinely massive undertaking and one they seem to understand well. They also have some experienced people around them who are advising. This expedition has to be ranked highly in terms of challenging the human body to its absolute limits, both physically and mentally. The reality is that not many people could do this sort of thing.

You can see more of their story as it happens on their website and donate to the mission for The Brain Tumour Charity. They want to raise £250,000, on top of their costs.

Personally I reckon they could smash this target, especially if they get some support so please help spread the word…

www.oceanvalour.co.uk
Follow them on Twitter @OV2015
Follow their page on Facebook ‘Ocean Valour 2015’

The UK Construction funnel problem

August 12, 2014 nickrileyarchitect Leave a comment

Earlier this year I attended a conference in London where Mark Farmer of EC Harris articulated some serious concern about the volume of construction activity in the pipeline and the likely ‘blockage’ that would occur with Main Contractors and Sub-Contractors, specifically in relation to their ability to respond to market demands. The issue being a lack of resources – and materials in some cases (brick availability being a big problem).

It seems that investors and developers have funds and are pushing projects forward at pace now – some of which are large, especially in the Residential sector. However the anticipated delivery/ supply chain blockage is now being realised…

At present we are engaged in the development of circa 3500+ Residential dwellings in London on numerous sites. In addition, following recent instructions, we have a fairly similar figure again in the UK regions – Manchester being a particular hotspot. Our Residential team is continuing to grow with our group team nearing 130 staff in recent weeks.

Our work winning success seems to be as a result of our focused/ efficient operating model, the scale and diversity of our team experience, and our extensive use of BIM. A big strategic focus for the group is on diversification and this is working very well for us. We’ve recently been appointed on Student Living, Education, Industrial and Healthcare related projects, in addition to our existing ever growing port-folio of Residential, Retail and Leisure work.

One thing that’s fueling the surge of major projects in construction is the significant interest and activity in the emerging ‘built to rent’ or ‘private rented sector’ (PRS), to deliver large Residential products, these are funded by institutional and international funds. This is something we’re involved with at present.

Our London projects are perhaps proving the most challenging at present, in terms of Tender dialogue, as Main Contractors are needing to be very selective about what they can physically handle. Furthermore sub-contractors are struggling to respond to pre-construction programme demands in terms of finalising designs and cost plans.

So the wider impact of all this could be significant, with cost plans rising and construction programme’s becoming protracted in some cases. It’s been reported in the press over the last week or so that brick layers are earning £1000 a week now. There’s a sense of the tail waging the dog here!

This issue won’t resolve itself quickly. There is now a clear skills and resources shortage in the Construction industry which simply can’t handle the current demands of the Property and Investment sector.

There’s a real irony here of course; The Construction sector has been the worst affected by the recession, by some margin. Now the recovery has recently occurred so quickly that the sector simply can’t cope with demand. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds in the 12 months as developers and contractors race to complete projects on site.

So whilst we as architects are incredibly busy bringing new developments to market, the challenge will remain for sometime yet in terms of building these on site effectively.

Measurable results from MIPIM…

August 4, 2014 nickrileyarchitect Leave a comment

Every February/ March, the property world talks lots about MIPIM. It’s a big annual property conference in Cannes, I’ve blogged a number of times about it. People who haven’t been or don’t understand MIPIM, can see it as an extravagance and there are always questions about what you get from it. The honest answer is, you don’t come back with an order book full of projects. It’s about making connections. Some of those connections take time and the right opportunity to develop to the next stage.

The last week seems to have been a strong one in terms of developing MIPIM connections. I have;

– Set up a meeting between two developers I met at MIPIM this year. Whilst it’s early days, this introduction could prove very valuable.

– I’ve made contact with a high profile architect I had dinner with at MIPIM in 2013 and we’re discussing a potential collaboration for a high-rise development in London we’re involved with.

– I’ve set up a meeting with a high profile developer to discuss a Student Living brand of their residential development business.

These are all results of meetings I would not have had, or not been able to set up easily, back in the UK. To start a conversation or email with “We met at MIPIM…” always opens the door in my experience. So I’m reminded again that MIPIM is important and can add real value to doing business in property.

In October there will be the first MIPIM UK event. I’m in two minds as to whether the MIPIM of Cannes can be recreated in London. I have strong doubts as to whether it will work. I’m sure people will go, but it simply can’t be the same as Cannes and I question whether people will generate connections in the same way.