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.
The growth of living walls
A growing trend for green walls is emerging, boosting biodiversity in our towns and cities. According to a recent report by the UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC) , Biodiversity and the Built ...
Design and SpecificationSustainability
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
Structural Engineer subscribers are seeking assurance that NBS is keeping pace with the release of Eurocodes. Consultant Engineer and NBS freelance author, Ted Wallis, strikes the NBS formwork and ...
Design and Specification
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
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
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
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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
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
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
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
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 ...
