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
design-and-specification
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.
design-and-specification
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.
NBS Source: a new future for manufacturer product information
1. Background The specifiers that use NBS want to create a built environment that is safe and inclusive, and has sustainable outcomes. NBS helps specifiers meet this challenge through delivering ...
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
Cloud-based: Chorus is based entirely online, meaning you can access it anywhere. Whether you’re in the office, your home office, or the living room couch, all you need is an internet connection and ...
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
Construction, Car Shows, Covid19
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 ...
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
Collaborative specification writing
Background This article illustrates how a specifier can use NBS Chorus to collaborate with a manufacturer to produce a complex specification.
Design and SpecificationDigital Transformation
What is The Golden Thread?
The Building Safety Bill is being developed as part of the new safety regime to prevent any events similar to the Grenfell Tower disaster, which killed 72 people in 2017. It will overhaul existing ...
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
Megatrends - An Introduction
Here’s a question for you, a quick thought-experiment: What is the first product you can think of that you know millions of people will still be buying and consuming in ten years from now?
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
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Uniclass 2015 - January 2020 update
This is the latest in our quarterly updating programme for Uniclass 2015, and includes updates to ten tables.
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
What is a specification for construction?
What are architectural specifications? A specification is a detailed description of the dimensions, construction, workmanship, materials etc., of work done or to be done on a project, prepared by an ...
Design and SpecificationSpecification
Making the most of Masters
It wouldn’t make sense to write all these clauses from scratch at the start of every new specification, especially if you’re beginning with a blank page for each project. Equally though, there’s risk ...
Design and SpecificationDigital Transformation
Uniclass 2015 - October 2019 update
This is the latest in our quarterly updating programme for Uniclass 2015, and includes updates to seven tables.
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
Specifications and classification
One of the questions most commonly asked of NBS is what the differences are between structuring specifications by Common Arrangement of Work Sections (CAWS) and Uniclass 2015.
