J Foster Architects is a London-based practice founded by Jeremy Foster, that predominantly delivers small residential projects such as conversions, extensions and renovations. The practice has used the NBS Building software for many years but has recently migrated to NBS Chorus Small Works. Dr Stephen Hamil, NBS Innovation Director, caught up with Jeremy to find out more about his NBS Chorus experience.

On the 20th July 2020, the Government published the ‘Draft Building Safety Bill’: the most radical proposed overhaul of building safety regulations for decades. In the wake of recent tragedies, much work has been conducted under Dame Judith Hackitt’s leadership to make way for a better, safer future for buildings and those who occupy them.

In this article, the process followed at AHMM, which aligns to this RIBA Plan of Work framework, is outlined. Complexities that relate to the following are covered: preparing for specification writing; providing clarity between descriptive and prescriptive specifications; and coordinating specifications with the wider set of project information.

This year’s 2020 BIM report marks the 10th year of asking the industry for their views about BIM. Read the latest on the state of BIM, reflecting the views of over 1,000 industry professionals. See how usage and views of BIM have changed since 2011. What progress have we made as an industry and what changes do we anticipate in the next decade?

In April 2020 Dale Sinclair, Director of Technical Practice at AECOM gave a presentation giving an overview to the RIBA Plan of Work 2020. Following the session, a number of questions were raised by attendees. These questions are addressed below by Dale and Alex Tait, Head of Technical Practice at RIBA.

As part of a recent NBS webinar on collaborative specification writing, Chris Dixon (Associate Architect at Franklin Ellis Architects) described how he had worked with Dulux Trade to develop paint systems specifications for a complex building project.

In difficult times, it is very easy to look at cutting back on what might be regarded as non-core expenditure. Training usually stops with marketing, with sales support also being seen as one of the budgets for reduction – this is usually a big mistake!

The UK Government has published their response to the ‘Building a Safer Future’ consultation. This outlines the coming changes to the regulatory system for building safety. Lee Jones, Head of Manufacturer Solutions at NBS, provides a summary of the report below.

At NBS, our vision is to be the information platform for the construction industry. Our mission is to use the power of connected data to add value and enable a safe, efficient, high-quality industry. In this article Dr Stephen Hamil, Innovation Director for NBS, takes us through the reasons behind the development our new platform NBS Source.

The move to homeworking has created new challenges for the industry that we are all adapting to. We’ve seen an increase in usage of our NBS Chorus specification platform, and many of our customers are seeing the benefits of specifying in the cloud now more than ever. In this article we outline how Chorus will make your life easier while you’re working from home.

In what seems like just a few weeks, the world has changed. We face a threat, the likes of which we have rarely seen. Governments are taking drastic actions to limit the spread of the virus to protect the vulnerable. At the same time, this risks hurting even more through economic damage. In China, GDP fell by over 20% in February and most economies are looking at similar declines.

This article illustrates how a specifier can use NBS Chorus to collaborate with a manufacturer to produce a complex specification.