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.
Reclassification
Many countries have classification systems for construction work. These are reviewed regularly, occasionally resulting in a radical reclassification – the February ICIS Newsletter described new ...
UniclassClassification
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
Andrew Wilson, NBS Scheduler coordinator, clears up our thinking on how schedules of work work. This article is paired by another, 'The structure of a schedule of work.
Ban the ban: materials blacklists
We have recently had a couple of queries about materials blacklists, which we had thought were a thing of the past. Clearly this is not the case, so John Gelder, Content development manager, revisits ...
Design and SpecificationConstruction Products
The structure of a schedule of work
The schedule of work is rarely, if ever, used in isolation. It is commonly bound together with contract preliminaries (describing general project requirements and contract terms) and with a ...
Specifying colour
The visible electromagnetic spectrum ranges between about 400 nm (violet) and 700 nm (red). In building, colours are rarely pure spectral colours (like the yellow from low pressure sodium vapour ...
Design and SpecificationSpecification
A code of procedure for production information
The latest version of Production information: A code of procedure for the construction industry is growing in acceptance and will feature as part of the Avanti research project into improvements in ...
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Do not get your wires crossed: the colour coding of low voltage fixed wiring cable cores
The colour coding of low voltage fixed wiring cable cores changed on 31 March 2004 . These changes affect not only electrical contractors, but also specifiers, builders, do-it-yourself enthusiasts ...
Construction Products
Education checklist - Lecture theatres
A lot of teaching goes on in lecture theatres, but how much learning? A 1999 study by David Fleming, now at Northumbria University, and John Storr, at Sheffield Hallam University, explored how ...
Design and Specification
Public sector building: adaptable housing for special needs
Adaptable housing is a subset of the open building philosophy (1) which focuses on designing housing so it is flexible enough to accommodate future special needs users. This ties into the concept of ...
