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.
Dispute resolution
With over 10 years experience in the dispute resolution section of an international consultancy, dealing with projects ranging from runways to power stations to highrise buildings, John Boanson’s ...
Contracts and LawProcurement
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
Access statements demonstrate how the legislative obligations placed upon developers, designers and service providers are met, or will be met. Access statements are not simply a tool for achieving ...
Standards and Regulations
The benefits of master specifications
Specification is an essential part of the design process. Unfortunately, for most engineers, it is the least enjoyed task. This often results in specifications of inferior quality. If a specification ...
Design and SpecificationSpecification
Underfloor heating: the cover up
The following notes cover some of the factors that must be taken into account when selecting a finish over underfloor heating. In all cases the advice and recommendations of the heating system and ...
Construction Products
Part H: Drainage and waste disposal
Approved Document H, amended in 2002, covers both foul and rainwater drainage, waste water treatment systems and cesspools and solid waste storage.
Standards and RegulationsFlooding
External stairs, ramps, handrails and balustrades
External steps and ramps are one of the few areas of work where a landscape architect may need to refer to the Building Regulations Approved Documents. There is no obligation to adopt a particular ...
Design and Specification
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Preliminaries and contemporary procurement
With the construction industry adopting design and build, partnering, or PFI procurement for certain sized projects, NBS is consulting with subscribers to understand and formulate proposals that ...
Procurement
The use of historic buildings as museums and art galleries
Architects and their clients face very significant dilemmas in making historic buildings more inclusive in response to contemporary access standards and regulations. Architects, conservationists, ...
Design and SpecificationFire safety
Yes! We have no specifications
Like Nero's Domus Aurea, little remains of Ian McGlinn's Maison d'Or – though a legal (rather than archaeological) legacy lives on. John Gelder looks at what this legacy tells us about specification.
Design and SpecificationSpecification
Part M: Access Statements
The consideration of disabled person’s needs required under Part M of the Building Regulations has been assimilated by the construction industry since 2000. In May 2004 the focus of Part M changed to ...
Standards and Regulations
Toilets for disabled access
Austin Williams, provides a general assessment of the needs for disabled access to toilets, in the first of the NBS Shortcuts series.
Design and SpecificationBook extract
Approved Document F
Approved Document Part F: Ventilation contains more guidance on domestic mechanical and natural ventilation systems than the previous ADF L: 1995. The main changes between the current Approved ...
