Over the past year families have rediscovered their gardens using them for play, relaxation, urban farm, office, nature reserve, classroom, dining room, kitchen, entertaining space. More families realising the potential of these sometimes neglected area mostly as houses have grown in size over the past few decades. Residential gardens are vital as they represent part […]
The Australian Bushfires are a warning to the world
Over the past few months, there have been bushfires (wildfires) that have burnt in many states of Australia. These fires have burnt through over 8.4Â million hectares (21Â million acres; 84,000 square kilometres; 32,000 square miles) including over 2,500 buildings with over 25 people perishing along with an estimated 500 million animals. These fires have come during […]
Australia`s Parliament House is about to get ring fenced
Just before the Houses of Parliament broke for the Christmas holiday they approved to increase security (or perimeter security enhancements as its known security jargon) at Parliament House by surrounding the roof and their lawns with 2.6 metre, 1.5 metre and 1.2 metre high fences at various intervals [pdf] which has drawn great ire from […]
Shanghai starts promoting Precast Concrete in Construction
Nearly every building, landscape and piece of construction in China uses insitu concrete (on-site poured) concrete. There are many issues with on-site concrete include Pollution: On site pollution, waste, noise, trucks, on-site mixers, soil compaction, water pollution Inefficient Usage: Concrete goes off (bad) quickly if not used within 20-30 minutes, transport needs to be fast […]
Australian Economy: Factors to watch in 2011
These are observations of  factors I think will change the Australian market in 2011.  Other short-term factors will come into play that could change any or all of these factors. I predict these with great trepidation as I have heard only a fool predicts the future of any economy but it was fun exercise to think about. […]