Sadly, it's under threat of losing its quaint character, as shoddily constructed buildings are thrown up all around it.

The construction boom destroyed the city's green belt and villas that gave it architectural grace, to make way for characterless and shoddily constructed apartment blocks.

The brazenly titled and shoddily constructed play "The Nerd" by Larry Shue raises other questions as well.

Mr. Brochet, the architect, said unexpected problems arose because, despite the Orangerie's elegant neo-Classical exterior, it was in fact constructed shoddily.

Many of them were shoddily constructed studios and one-bedroom units that, when financial trouble hit, were left to languish on the market.

The probe was triggered after an employee said officials had ignored his warnings that the roof of an authority-owned office building in Coram was shoddily constructed and could collapse.

Close to town, the buildings were mostly houses: shoddily constructed things, thrown up four hundred years ago when Simka was going through a period of overoptimistic expansion.

It was also based, he said, on the extremely low survival rate in the cities' shoddily constructed buildings.

These would-be residents were ready to pay more than a third above market price for the privilege of living in houses so shoddily constructed that they might not be standing in 20 years.

In the powerful conclusion, Geremio dies when a building's shoddily constructed walls collapse.