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 case study: Liverpool Central Library
Liverpool Central Library and Archive reopened to the public in May 2013 after a £50 million refurbishment that took almost three years. The library was Britain’s first purpose-built public lending ...
Design and Specification
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
How the Palace of Westminster gets rid of all that hot air
Images of the crumbling fabric and antiquated network of environmental services, including the mechanical ventilation and air-conditioning system in the Palace of Westminster, suggest that the ...
Design and SpecificationSustainability
Multi-storey and underground car parks
Despite their seeming simplicity, the design of a car park on multiple levels – whether above ground or below – involves the consideration of a number of significant requirements. These range from ...
Design and Specification
Case study: Bridlington Leisure World
The need for accurate and up-to-date specifications East Riding of Yorkshire Council is in the early stages of a project to replace the aging Bridlington Leisure World. The new, multipurpose facility ...
Design and SpecificationSpecification
Berlin's Museum for Architectural Drawing
This new gallery for architectural drawings, designed by German/Russian practice SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov recently won the ar+d awards in the UK. It is a small 500m² gallery in Berlin, ...
Design and SpecificationVideo
What architects can learn from designing with children
It makes perfect sense. If you need to design a new school or playground, who better to help than the children who are going to use it? Gradually, more architects and landscape designers are bringing ...
Design and Specification
Subscribe
Masonry specification in NBS Create
The August 2014 update to the masonry content in NBS Create brought with it a new, more flexible way to specify masonry systems and products. The new method differs significantly from the original ...
Design and SpecificationSpecification
Specifying masonry systems in NBS Create
The August 2014 update to the masonry content in NBS Create brought with it a new, more flexible way to specify masonry systems and products. The new method differs significantly from the original ...
Design and Specification
One Angel Square
Designed by 3DReid and engineered by Buro Happold, the Co-op’s recently opened £100m headquarters in Manchester, 1 Angel Square, has a BREEAM ‘outstanding’ rating.
Design and SpecificationVideo
Prefab housing is coming back, and this time it's permanent
In the late 1950s, more than a decade after the war and not long after the rock and roll explosion, Britain embarked on a house-building programme the like of which we have never seen before or since.
Design and SpecificationSustainability
Subsidence (6/8)
This is the sixth in an eight-part series of articles, Climate Change Adaptation in Buildings, examining the impact of climate change on the built environment, and the responses that can be made to ...
Design and SpecificationSustainability
Visual concrete
This programme will be of benefit to architects, structural engineers, project managers and construction specialists who wish to understand how concrete can be used on walls, columns, slabs and ...
