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
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.
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.
Early-stage specification: new content for Uniclass and CAWS in Chorus
What is early-stage specification? The addition of early-stage content provides a place to record information that forms the basis for the design development, which is information that is essential ...
Design and SpecificationUniclass
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
How does Uniclass support interoperability? The classification of ‘things’ is integral to the successful delivery of interoperable data, allowing information to be organized and easily retrieved. To ...
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
Uniclass tables - explained
Uniclass is published digitally in a set of tables, logically structured to support various classification needs for asset management, infrastructure operations, and built environment lifecycle ...
UniclassClassification
Sustainability: An NBS guide to combating light pollution
Light pollution is an unwanted by-product of artificial light. It's most problematic in urban settings where artificial light sources exist en masse.
Design and SpecificationHealth and Safety
What is Uniclass?
What is Uniclass? Uniclass is a unified classification system for the built environment covering all sectors and roles, delivered by NBS.
UniclassClassification
Pricing specifications and drawings for small works
1. The contract documents When working on basic construction projects, where the work is of a simple nature, then typically this work will be undertaken using a ‘small works’ standard form ...
Design and SpecificationDigital Transformation
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NBS for small practices
1. The importance of specification Many smaller practices work on less complex construction projects. While there is no universal definition of what a ‘small works’ project is, it is generally ...
Design and SpecificationDigital Transformation
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
What is COBie?
Update: Since this article was first written, all the content from the NBS National BIM Library has moved across to NBS Source. ...
Digital TransformationCOBie
Download our infographic: The Seven Cs of Specification
Across the world, at universities, aspiring architects and engineers receive hours and hours of training in how to design and prepare drawings, but in general receive little support or instruction on ...
Design and SpecificationConstruction Products
Our top summer reads on smart cities, big data and more
You took BIM for Dummies to the Bahamas last year, so what should you read this time around? In advance of the holiday season we’ve compiled ten of the most popular paperbacks on big data, smart ...
Fire safetyVentilation
12 of the biggest health and safety risks in construction
According to HSE, within the UK there are 80,000 construction workers who suffer from work-related bad health each year and 64,000 who suffer non-fatal injuries.
