Knowledge

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

A specifier’s guide to BREEAM New Construction V7

Discover how specification can support BREEAM New Construction V7, with practical guidance from NBS and BRE on assessment requirements, evidence and more sustainable project outcomes.

Must Reads

  • Sponsored

    Designing sustainability into construction – proof over promises in sustainable construction

    With tightening regulations and growing client demand, the construction industry is under increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable progress against carbon reduction targets. For specifiers, that ...

  • Construction Products

    Dulux Trade launches new solution for high-humidity spaces

    Because of how they are used, kitchens and bathrooms experience more moisture, more contact, and more ongoing maintenance. Standard emulsions are not designed for this level of use. Over time, ...

  • concrete

    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 ...

Greening the concrete jungle: How to make environmentally friendly cement

Cement is the world’s most widely used material apart from water, largely because it is the key ingredient in concrete, the world’s favourite building material.

Design and SpecificationSustainability
NBS-LCA

Reduce embodied carbon from the start

Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.

Has bendable concrete cracked the maintenance burden?

Billions of pounds are spent every year dealing with the resulting cracks and, in recent years, scientists have been experimenting with a range of self-healing technologies. Now researchers in ...

Design and SpecificationSustainability

Self-healing concrete

Cracking concrete and costly repair bills could be a thing of the past as university researchers trial technologies to deliver 'self-healing' concrete.

Design and SpecificationConstruction Products

The problem with reinforced concrete

By itself, concrete is a very durable construction material. The magnificent Pantheon in Rome, the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, is in excellent condition after nearly 1,900 years. And ...

Design and SpecificationSustainability

How your garden could help stop your city flooding

Urban flooding represents the most common yet severe environmental threat to cities and towns worldwide. Future changes in rainfall extremes are likely to increase this threat, even in areas that ...

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 ...

Design and SpecificationConstruction Products

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Unstabilised rammed earth

As well as looking at the properties of rammed earth, or pise, this programme asks whether concrete should be added as a stabiliser, the issue of cost, and along the way we look at some high-profile failures and successes.

SustainabilityConstruction Products

The Relevance of Ronan Point Today

Ronan Point, a tower block in east London which suffered a fatal partial collapse in 1968 due to a gas explosion, was a critical event that changed the way UK engineers considered robustness.

Design and SpecificationVideo

Precast concrete pavement lights

Used to allow light to basement areas, pavement lights first appeared in London in the late 1880s in the form of cast iron frames glazed with cut squares of glass. Plain glass fenestration was ...

Construction ProductsConcrete

Engineering the Shard

Renzo Piano's Shard is the tallest building in Western Europe. This programme looks at how engineers WSP helped the architect realise his design in one of the most constrained sites imaginable. The ...

Design and SpecificationVideo

Getting Started with Eurocode 2

Eurocode 2 is the new standard for the design of concrete structures. It has been hailed as a robust and rigorous design code, taking a less prescriptive approach to design.

Standards and RegulationsVideo