LONDON: A chance 45-second chat in a cloakroom at the World Economic Forum in Davos has spawned Britain's tallest sculpture, which will be built for the London Olympics and soar higher than Big Ben.

"Ever since I was young, I loved to build things. I decided to follow this career path pretty much after high school," Olivia Mirza, 35, says. This love has continued after Olivia started her PhD at the University of Western Sydney in 2006.

JOHN COLAHAN GRIFFIN ARTIST, ARCHITECT 7-6-1920 - 20-6-2008

RESIDENTS say a year is too long to close a busy Newcastle road, and the last straw was watching the temporary fencing that closes off half of a large section of Newcomen Street come crashing down.

Civil engineers are entering the labour market in record numbers. A 2007 Australian Bureau of Statistics labour-force survey says employment growth for civil engineers, over the past two years, is 47.7 per cent compared with 4.5 per cent for all occupations.