Colin Davies – författare

The architecture of Michael Hopkins' (b.1935) formative years has evolved into something that defies easy stylistic categorization. In buildings such as Glyndebourne Opera House, the Inland Revenue Centre and the New Parliamentary Building, a new individuality has emerged. These works have the uncompromising quality of certain nineteenth-century industrial buildings, yet they have gained acceptance among some of Britain's most ancient institutions.They are often hybrid creations, juxtaposing strongly contrasting elements, while remaining loyal to a strict code of truth to materials and honesty of expression. Traditional and new forms of construction are combined in unconventional ways, often using innovative prefabrication techniques, but without sacrificing traditional craft virtues. Detailed presentations of 26 buildings and projects analyse the genesis and logic of a unique - and now instantly recognizable - architectural scope.This book's publication coincided with Hopkins' most important commission to date - the New Parliamentary Building in London - which enjoys an extensive presentation and detailed discussion by Patrick Hodgkinson. An essay by respected architecture critic Charles Jencks examines themes and historical precedent in the buildings, whereas an interview with Michael Hopkins himself gives a personal perspective to the momentous work and office of Michael Hopkins and Partners.

This text explores the concept of major and serious crime investigations as it takes the reader through the fundamental elements of investigative theory and practice that are relevant to this area of criminality.Unlike other texts that concentrate on either bespoke areas of criminality such as homicide, terrorism or tends in concepts such as county lines, this book recognises that the reader will be new to investigative study with little practitioner experience to anchor their learning. By using the latest evidence-based policing knowledge and critical thinking, it explores the concepts of major and serious crime, detailing key areas of legislation and how investigative strategies and decision making can influence successful outcomes. Other topics examined in this text is the key areas of risk for major and serious crime investigations, the impact on investigators, the concept of disclosure, investigative interviewing and how civil orders, designed to tackle this type of criminality can provide a successful alternative to prosecution.Both students and practitioners can find this book useful with this book's contemporary approach of using case studies and contemporary investigative examples relevant to the topic. This book brings together academic theory and operational understanding of major and serious crime that provides learners with an easy to follow guide that they can keep returning to throughout their career.

Prefabrication cannot be ignored, for it challenges the most traditional values of architecture. Architects may have neglected this area of practical construction, but they have much to learn from pattern-book houses, modular structures, Portakabins and mobile homes.The Prefabricated Home examines how the relationship between architecture and industrialized building has now become an urgent issue for architects.Colin Davies traces the history of prefabricated buildings from small-scale ‘prefabs’ to the precast concrete mass housing of the 1960s to the present-day revival of interest in ‘volumetric’ modular buildings, and assesses their architectural implications. He looks at what is happening today in factories and on building sites worldwide, and contrasts the aesthetic concerns of architects with the economic ones of industrialized building manufacturers. He argues that the involvement of architects in industrialized building can produce an exciting new type of architecture that is humane, liberating and environmentally friendly.The Prefabricated Home is a revealing and instructive book that will appeal to anyone interested in architecture and concerned with the future of housing.