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
contracts-and-law
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.
contracts-and-law
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.
Five practical tips on coordinating project information and specifications
This article is from the RIBA Construction Contracts and Law Report 2022. It has been reproduced for the NBS website with added illustrations showing how NBS tools can be used to address the ...
Design and SpecificationNBS Source
Reduce embodied carbon from the start
Measure, compare and reduce upfront embodied carbon using trusted UK data and pre-built assemblies.
NBS Chorus for those that write contract Preliminaries
Within the NBS Chorus software platform we have developed content packages that are tailored to specific user requirements. For example, users can subscribe to separate libraries for ‘architectural’, ...
Design and SpecificationProduct update
12 Days of Digital Construction
1. Digital transformation has accelerated
Design and SpecificationStandards and Regulations
The Construction Leaders' Summit: six key takeaways
1. Stop making excuses, start making changes All of us have had to adapt to new ways of working following the COVID-19 pandemic. We've seen that if a significant driver like the pandemic comes along, ...
Design and SpecificationSustainability
Understanding the draft Building Safety Bill: Further Reading
Following the recent NBS webinar reviewing the context, content and potential impact of the draft Building Safety Bill, there have been a few requests for a list of the many references mentioned in ...
Contracts and Law
The new contract normal – What does it look like?
The situation that the construction industry is confronted with today would have been beyond anyone’s perception or comprehension at the start of 2020. The industry is now struggling to manage the ...
Contracts and Law
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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
RIBA Plan of Work 2020 Overview – Question and answer
In April 2020 Dale Sinclair, Director of Technical Practice at AECOM gave a presentation giving an overview to the RIBA Plan of Work 2020. Following the session, a number of questions were raised by ...
Design and SpecificationSustainability
Dealing with contractual risk within the supply chain
For all the years I can remember, the mantra has been: USE UNAMENDED STANDARD FORMS OF CONTRACT. But, by and large, this has fallen on deaf ears, especially as you proceed along the supply chain
Contracts and Law
JCT Contracts 2016 and NBS - Spring 2018 update
As part of their ongoing publishing programme, the Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) released the first batch of their ‘2016’ contracts towards the end of June 2016. This included the Minor Works (MW) ...
Contracts and Law
NEC4 Contracts and NBS - What's new? May 2018 update
A number of changes have been made to NEC4, with the intention of streamlining terms and operation across the whole suite. These include amendments to terminology, as well as provisions concerning ...
Contracts and Law
If banking can do it, why not construction?
Last spring, in a speech to Russian delegates, I contrasted the construction industry with the financial services industry. You might think our transactions have little in common on the face of it, ...
