Mark Lawson

Modular construction can dramatically improve efficiency in construction, through factory production of pre-engineered building units and their delivery to the site either as entire buildings or as substantial elements. The required technology and application are developing rapidly, but design is still in its infancy. Good design requires a knowledge of modular production, installation and interface issues and also an understanding of the economics and client-related benefits which influence design decisions.Looking at eight recent projects, along with background information, this guide gives you coverage of: generic types of module and their application vertical loading, stability and robustness dimensional and spacial planning hybrid construction cladding, services and building physics fire safety and thermal and acoustic performance logistical aspects – such as transport, tolerances and safe installation. A valuable guide for professionals and a thorough introduction for advanced students.

Modular construction can dramatically improve efficiency in construction, through factory production of pre-engineered building units and their delivery to the site either as entire buildings or as substantial elements. The required technology and application are developing rapidly, but design is still in its infancy. Good design requires a knowledge of modular production, installation and interface issues and also an understanding of the economics and client-related benefits which influence design decisions.Looking at eight recent projects, along with background information, this guide gives you coverage of: generic types of module and their application vertical loading, stability and robustness dimensional and spacial planning hybrid construction cladding, services and building physics fire safety and thermal and acoustic performance logistical aspects – such as transport, tolerances and safe installation.A valuable guide for professionals and a thorough introduction for advanced students.

"Australian attempts to convert to renewables basically have no parallel. To make matters worse, not only do policy-makers want to shift to all renewables they want to throw away the fossil fuel back-up power sources. This has not happened anywhere and is madness."In order to avoid a climate crisis, which never seems to arrive, activists and state governments are about to plunge us all into a very real power crisis. In ten years don't bother to try turning on the lights.Mark Lawson, journalist and authorwww.clearvadersname.comThe whole emissions debate involves spending billions and imposing more billions in costs on the economy for no gain of any kind. Even if we assume that Australia's emissions reduction effort is matched by other countries, which plainly isn't happening, it is all but impossible to construct a cost-benefit analysis to justify the billions being spent. Yet almost all commentators seem to have lost sight of that basic point, in favour of cheering on all emissions reduction efforts irrespective of the costs. After all, their jobs remain secure.A valuable addition to the short list of books that can be recommended to Australian voters.This book should be in every library.- Rafe Champion, Energy Realists of Australia

From Chapter 1: Once a week in a conference room in Salt Lake City, in the American state of Utah, a dozen people gather for a session of climate change grief counselling. Convened by a Laura Schmidt, a full-time activist with a masters in environmental humanities, the sessions permit the participants to vent over all the things not being done about climate change, and how the participants themselves are doing things that contribute to a problem (such as drive cars to the meetings, we suppose) that they imagine will affect their loved ones. One tale to emerge from these fraught sessions is that of a woman who, when confronted by piles of merchandise in a store produced and packaged in all sorts of energy-intensive ways, had to retreat to her car to recover for a time before she could face shopping again. Ms Schmidt, who organised additional sessions following the election of Donald Trump as American president (Trump easily won Utah, a traditionally Republican state), has developed a ten-step coping program loosely based on the Alcoholics Anonymous program to cope with this sort of stress.

On the morning after he has celebrated his 60th birthday party at a celebrity-filled party, Ned Marriott is in bed with his partner, Emma, when there's a knock on the door. Detectives from the London police force's 'Operation Millpond' have come to arrest him over an allegation of sexual assault. Ned is one of the country's best-known historians - teaching at a leading university, advising governments and making top-rating TV documentaries - but this 'historic' claim from someone the cops insist on calling 'the victim' threatens him with personal and professional ruin and potential imprisonment. Professor Marriott would normally turn for support to Tom Pimm, his closest friend at the university, but Tom has just been informed that a secret investigation has raised anonymous complaints, which may end Dr Pimm's career. Swinging between fear, bewilderment and anger, Ned and Tom must try to defend themselves against the allegations, and hope that no others are made. The two men's families and friends are forced to question what they know and think. Can the complainants, detectives, HR teams, journalists and Tweeters who are driving the stories all be seeing smoke that has no fire behind it? By turns shocking and comic, reportorial and thoughtful, The Allegations startlingly and heart-breakingly captures a contemporary culture in which allegations are easily made and reputations casually destroyed. Asking readers to decide who they believe, it explores a modern nightmare that could happen, in some way, to anyone whose view of personal history may differ from someone else's.

Steelwork offers the opportunity for architectural expression, as well as being structurally versatile and adaptable material. Good detailing is vital because it affects structural performance, costs, buildability and, perhaps most importantly, appearance. Whilst the choice of the structural form is often the province of the structural engineer, architects should have a broad appreciation of the factors leading to the selection of the structure and its details. Traditionally, most detailing of connections is the responsibility of the steelwork fabricator, but for exposed steelwork, detailing is of much more interest to the architect, as it impacts on the aesthetics of the structure. In this respect it is important that designers appreciate the common fabrication and erection techniques which may exert a strong influence on the method and approach to the detailing of modern steelwork in buildings. Architectural Design in Steel is a design guide to the detailing of exposed steelwork in buildings. It is a guide which offers technical guidance and general principles, as well as examples of best practice. It covers all aspects from manufacture to detailing, specification of finishes and fabrication, providing architects, as well as engineers, with essential information to inform the design.

Four families live in a beautiful stretch of English countryside in magnificent listed houses, built for the old aristocracy. They are the new aristocracy and the elite of their village: financiers, business tycoons, lawyers, doctors, magistrates. They leave their rural idyll only to commute first-class to London for meetings, deals and theatre outings or Heathrow flights to winter sun or half-term skiing. They and their children are protected by investments, pensions and expensive security systems. But the money is running out in Britain, and as tensions and relationships develop within the group of friends, finally, deep in the English winter, an unthinkable act of violence destroys these dream lives and demonstrates that the biggest threat may come from unexpected places. This horrific act happens on the first pages but Lawson provides dramatic twists and false turns and it is only by the end of the book that we discover who the victims are and who committed the crime. Mark Lawson’s first novel in eight years is his most ambitious yet. Combining ingenious plotting with forensic social comedy, this is a dark and brilliant novel of life in twenty-first-century England.

Beginning in Timaru, reputedly the most activity-challenged place in New Zealand, Lawson travels through Australia and Canada, where he learns to be especially wary of any place named after Queen Victoria or her close relatives. After dropping in on Normal, Illinois and Dead Horse, Alaska – place names in the quiet world are sometimes disarmingly honest – he travels through soothing Switzerland, Milton Keynes, and Belgium, before his journey’s end in EuroDisney, Expo ’92, and Center Parcs: territories of Somewhere, the new tourist continent where, in a reversal of the usual rules of travel, countries come to you.

Enough is Enough revolves around actual events in May 1968. Harold Wilson knows the public thinks he's a slippery liar, the newspapers are out for his blood, and the party which once loved him is now plotting to remove him. Still, he has failed to spot at least two other conspiracies brewing. Bernard Storey, a journalist, stumbles on the rival plots and enters a world of lying and spying, back-stabbing and blackmail, malicious gossip and false intelligence.

Praised for its unabashed portrait of the 'death care' industry, HBO's 'Six Feet Under' is less about the business of death than the art of living well. It was created by Alan Ball ('American Beauty') and centres on a Pasadena undertakers run by two brothers, with their mom and teenage sister making up the dysfunctional family quarter. This innovative, controversial show charts difficult territory, from death, dying and bereavement, to female and gay sexualities, laying bare in the process an American cultural consciousness. 'Six Feet Under' first aired among HBO's 'must-see' Sunday night line-up in 2001, going on to establish itself as a critical and ratings winner. This book on the groundbreaking show examines such themes as the modern sacred and profane, pornography and the dead body, magic realism and the grotesque, American cultural politics, self-help culture, family relationships, homosexuality and re-thinking the closet, the church and gay politics, motherhood and teenage rebellion. Entertaining and enlightening in equal measure it contains a complete episode guide to the first four series of 'Six Feet Under'.

Steelwork offers the opportunity for architectural expression, as well as being structurally versatile and adaptable material. Good detailing is vital because it affects structural performance, costs, buildability and, perhaps most importantly, appearance. Whilst the choice of the structural form is often the province of the structural engineer, architects should have a broad appreciation of the factors leading to the selection of the structure and its details. Traditionally, most detailing of connections is the responsibility of the steelwork fabricator, but for exposed steelwork, detailing is of much more interest to the architect, as it impacts on the aesthetics of the structure. In this respect it is important that designers appreciate the common fabrication and erection techniques which may exert a strong influence on the method and approach to the detailing of modern steelwork in buildings. Architectural Design in Steel is a design guide to the detailing of exposed steelwork in buildings. It is a guide which offers technical guidance and general principles, as well as examples of best practice. It covers all aspects from manufacture to detailing, specification of finishes and fabrication, providing architects, as well as engineers, with essential information to inform the design.