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.
JCT Major Project Construction Contract
NBS Preliminaries includes sets of clauses for use with the JCT Major Project Construction Contract. NBS Technical Author Roland Finch explains some of the main features.
Contracts and Law
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
In this exclusive extract from Dispute Avoidance: A non-confrontational approach to the management of construction contracts by D. Bryan Morgan, we introduce the typical stages in a ...
Contracts and LawBook extract
A century of building specification works
Advice on specifying has a long history, beginning perhaps with 'On Architecture' by the Roman architect Vitruvius (24 BC). However, it has usually only been covered incidentally in works on other ...
Design and SpecificationSpecification
Thatch roofing
An erstwhile colleague once commented: “Why would you want to specify a roofing material which makes perfect nesting material for most of the local wildlife and could go up like a two bob rocket if a ...
Construction ProductsHistoric Buildings
An inspector calls
Following our article on specification, or lack of it, at Ian McGlinn's Maison d'Or 'Yes! We have no specifications', John Gelder looks at what the case tells us about inspection.
Design and Specification
CPIC and Uniclass - who, what and why?
In a world ruled by acronyms these are just another two, but CPIC and Uniclass are important to the success of the construction industry in cutting costs and waste. Sarah Delany, CPIC Secretary and ...
Design and SpecificationUniclass
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17th Edition Wiring regulations
The IEE/BSI Requirements for electrical installations has been updated as BS 7671:2008 Requirements for electrical installations. IEE wiring regulations. 17th Edition. This creates a new revised ...
Standards and Regulations
New standards for specifying macadam - NBS section Q22
Due to the number of enquiries asking where macadam should now be specified, NBS Technical Author Anna Dekker clarifies changes to standards and NBS which took place in 2008.
Construction Products
New standards for asphalt paving
On 1 January 2008 the existing British Standards for asphalt paving (BS 4987-1 and BS 594-1) were withdrawn and replaced by a new European Standard in several parts:
Construction Products
Lead in paint
Michele Lucarelli, NBS Technical Author, following work done on sections C20 and M60 with respect to lead in paint, provides some background to the issue.
Construction Products
RIP British masonry product standards
NBS Technical author, Kevan Brassington, outlines the confused transition – now at an end – from BSs to BS ENs for masonry units.
Standards and Regulations
BREEAM Assessment methods
BREEAM is a familiar term which has been in use since 1990, and when used in the construction industry, usually refers to 'BREEAM Buildings'. But BRE's Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) family ...
