Knowledge

A wide range of interesting articles that help you make informed decisions and deliver the best projects for your clients authored by our team of NBS subject specialists and construction industry contributors.

Sustainability

NBS Guide: Embodied Carbon Calculations

Learn how to align your carbon assessments with BIM workflows. This guide to Embodied Carbon Calculations, developed by NBS and Circular Ecology, sets out a practical, standardised approach to calculating the embodied carbon of building materials and products, and how to apply this data to BIM objects.

Must Reads

  • The hidden cost of compliance: why architects are demanding a new era of product transparency

    Few pieces of legislation have reshaped the UK construction industry as significantly as the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA). Introduced to improve accountability, traceability and safety standards ...

  • Design and Specification

    Brick slip cladding systems – the need for robust specification

    This article from the NBS technical team outlines specification for brick slip technology, including history, technology, design, safety and testing.

  • When product data creates risk, AluK delivers the clarity and support architects need

    The need to build more homes, more quickly, has not changed. If anything, the pressure has intensified. However, the conversation around Modern Methods of Construction has evolved.

Collaborative specification writing in the cloud

The digital transition in the construction industry utilizes technology, enabling us to work smarter together. Within ten years, full-scale digitalization could help the industry save an estimated ...

Digital Transformation
NBS-LCA

Reduce embodied carbon from the start

Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.

Working together as one - NBS platform developments in 2018

So far, many platform developments have been delivered in 2018: It’s a busy and exciting year for NBS. We want to thank our customers for their active contributions in driving these developments, ...

Digital Transformation

Ten benefits of a Master Specification System over Microsoft Word

Prior to the 1990s, construction specifications were written using a typewriter. In the 1990s, personal computers became affordable for businesses, and specification writing moved from the typewriter ...

Digital Transformation

NBS - The Global Journey

Update: Since this article was first written, all the content from the NBS National BIM Library has moved across to NBS Source. ...

Digital Transformation

It's all about the information

Different approaches When a team first comes together to design a project, each member brings a different approach to the preparation of the documentation required. Many design consultants allot far ...

Digital Transformation

Download our infographic: The Seven Cs of Specification

Across the world, at universities, aspiring architects and engineers receive hours and hours of training in how to design and prepare drawings, but in general receive little support or instruction on ...

Design and SpecificationConstruction Products

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Product Identification - the missing link of BIM

Some projects begin with a simple question. In this case, it was ‘Once we have a BIM, how are we going to know which construction products are in it?’

Digital TransformationConstruction Products

Platforms: Bridging the gap between construction and manufacturing

When the Latham Report, ‘Constructing the Team’, was published in 1994, Michael Latham noted that ‘There is scope for improvements through greater standardisation of components and design details and ...

Design and SpecificationDigital Transformation

NBS Innovation Panel

Our customers drive the NBS Product developments in many ways: from customer satisfaction surveys, advisory panels to our agile Innovation process. A recent NBS Customer Satisfaction Survey had the ...

Digital Transformation

What we learnt at Northumbrian Water's Innovation Festival 2018

In 2017 Northumbrian Water Group’s first Innovation Festival landed in the North East, and this year it was bigger and better than ever.

Design and SpecificationSustainability

From long lost arts to new eras: we predict the construction jobs of the future

As we prepare to welcome several thousand schoolchildren to our Future Buildings exhibition over the next month, we turned our thoughts to the construction industry some of them may well work in. ...

Design and SpecificationDigital Transformation

The ten innovations disrupting the construction industry

Our Future Buildings exhibition at the Old Post Office opened earlier this month, exploring what our homes, offices and schools may look like in the future and the technology empowering the ...

Design and SpecificationDigital Transformation