This was inspired by medieval thoroughfares such as Trinity Lane in Cambridge.The judges praised the building’s simplicity of design. But large windows and careful orientation mean that natural light penetrates throughout: its designers say this improves the occupants’ quality of life and helps avoid “sick building” syndrome.One of its most impressive features is a vast, roof-high interior concourse designed as a kind of covered street, with garden-style seating and airy walkways. Most buildings of its size and complexity – it houses lecture theatres, computer rooms and huge engine-testing laboratories – would also be artificially lit. However, it relies on traditional techniques – a massive masonry structure and high chimneys that suck in cooling air – to reduce energy consumption by 58 per cent compared with a conventional air-conditioned building. A LOW-ENERGY building that draws inspiration from medieval and Gothic architecture has won the Green Building of the Year Award, sponsored by the Heating & Ventilating Contractors’ Association and the Independent on Sunday. The Queen’s engineering building at De Montfort University in Leicester, designed by the London architects Short, Ford, and the consulting engineers Max Fordham Associates, is as eye-catching as it is innovative.

One of the largest naturally ventilated buildings in Europe, its tall chimneys and pitched roofs give an exotic flavour to the Midland city’s skyline.
The building has beendescribed as “low-energy Gothic” and “New Romantic”. I was apolitical before I took up nursing but I’m certainly not now.”Photographs by David Rose. People got their first big pay awards after the action in 1988 [over re-grading] and they realise that’s what’s got to be done.”We’ve always been taken for granted. Life has been getting harder and I think everyone should be pleased to see us getting more angry.”The average age of a nurse on my ward must be about 26 People get burnt out or leave to find well-paid jobs But I want to stand and fight. It’s an insult to people working so hard.”I think to bring in local pay bargaining is the first step to deconstructing the whole health service.”I want to know that if I go to another London hospital tomorrow I can be paid the same wage.”The NHS is a huge employer and people want to feel secure Local pay bargaining is the first step to running hospitals like little businesses.”I think nurses would be willing to strike. The 1 per cent offer was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But support is not coming from any corner and nurses are realising they have to do it themselves.

The amount of responsibility I had from day to day compared to the money I was getting was ludicrous.”I work on a haematology ward with leukaemia patients, where as well as sorting out X-rays and scans and general care, psychological support is very important – and it’s something I don’t have time to give.”People had the illusion that the Labour Party would make the health service better. Twelve years on, a senior nurse, she feels bitter at the way health workers have been treated. Pay: pounds 17,600 (with London weighting).”I quickly realised I had been very idealistic going into nursing. Porters used to think that even though it wasn’t a good job, at least it was a job for life. If I had to leave, where would I go? I suppose like everyone else, it would be McDonald’s.”The senior nurseJanet Maiden went into nursing for the job satisfaction.

Nobody’s smiling now except when they leave work.”They certainly don’t smile when they get their wage packet. They’d find out porters are only human and have ruined backs by the age of 35.”When ancillary workers here had a strike recently over multi-skilling, it was hysterical watching personnel managers tottering around on high heels pushing trolleys No one’s treated well here any more. Because there’s not enough staff there’s an awful backlog of jobs building up and then we have to explain to the wards why we’re 20 minutes behind.”The whole atmosphere is bad and health workers are taking it out on each other even though it’s no one’s fault.”If the nurses went on strike then the management would have to take over and then they’d see what it was like All chaos would be let loose. And the basic wage you get for a 39-hour week is pounds 130.”The kind of conditions we’re working in are disgraceful We’re behind the nurses 100 per cent. Now he is not so sure.”On an average day as a porter, you’re on the wards by 6.30 in the morning taking all the rubbish off them, then running to the kitchens to take the meals up.”Then next minute there’ll be a call, a nurse phoning up to tell you there’s a body to be taken away or there’s a bed to be moved or whatever You do a complete cross-section of things. It shows the extent of our feeling.”I don’t think the public will lose sympathy for us. In my experience when I went on strike at UCH [in protest against its being closed down] they realised it was their service we were fighting for.