People:
Despite her dice with death last time out at the hands of Rob, Helen has come back in for another stint upon completing year 3 of her Part 1. Welcome back! (Incidentally, read Clause 10 of your contract: All dealings with Rob Burge are entirely at the employees own risk and Willmore Iles shall not be held responsible for any damage that may arise to persons or possessions from said dealings)Also new in the office is senior Architect Julian “Tidy” Owen. So called not because of his penchant for being immaculately turned out and well organised but rather because he says “Tidy” a lot. Regardless; Julian has come straight in and has taken on the role of Project Architect for the residential conversion of a large Victorian school.
We would also like to welcome Carla Scherer, who will be joining the practice in the middle of April as an Architect. Carla will be working on the University of Exeter project and no doubt will be a valuable member of the team.
Finally, we would like to congratulate Rob and Maxine on the arrival of their bouncing baby boy Edward. Reports that Edward has more hair than Rob are yet to be confirmed.
Projects:
The University of Exeter project is now well underway. The Birks Hall scheme is up to roof level on two of the ten blocks. The project is going really well. (See below)The second site, Lafrowda, is due to start the construction phase at the end of April and will provide a further 902 student beds, FM space and student services.
The Lazy Dog has been completed, and immediately won praise for its service, design and atmosphere. Below is an extract from The Bristol Evening Post lavishing praise on “Pub of the Week”. I've also uploaded a before and after picture, so you can get an idea of the scope of the refit.
Planning permission has been granted for Grove House. This is an exciting residential project aimed at providing a glazed link between two internal spaces in an existing courtyard.
Other News
Following the introduction of “Cake Tuesday”, the office has become a veritable hotbed of culinary delights. Every Tuesday, an allotted member of staff brings in a homemade cake and is scored on the basis of taste, presentation and technical difficulty. As with everything vaguely competition related, there have been non-stop arguments about everything from penalty deductions for the late submission of cakes (a procedure has been written for this) to the validity of using clotted cream and jam as an accompaniment to home made scones (I do not accept that the jam and clotted cream can form any basis for marking and should be disregarded!).
Round 1 went to Ben for his Chocolate Brownies, although he himself admits that he felt he had to leave out the secret ingredient that he normally puts in them (he wouldn’t tell us what it is, but he swears it makes the experience totally mind blowing).
Round 2, which was only decided this week, went to Paul Walker Jones for his gluten free fruit gateau (pictured below). The office version was a sensible round shape, however, Paul did make two cakes, one of which was for his girlfriend, and shaped like a heart. Make up your own mind.
In March, Willmore Iles formed a football team (in the loosest sense of the word) and played a group of local builders led by Rob Flannagan. Despite Rob giving it “the big ‘un” and George’s best efforts to gift the builders a goal every time he touched the ball, Willmore Iles won through 6-4 and are now planning to take on some other local Architects. We are even forming a combined team with Structural Engineers Curtins Consulting and taking part in the “Construction Excellence world cup 5-a-side competition” in July. George has politely declined.
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