Technical newsletters about emerging issues & our latest research

BREEAM Infrastructure Certification for HS2

Posted on July 17th 2019

Costain-Skanska (CSJV) and their BREEAM Assessor Hodkinson Consultancy have recently submitted the BREEAM New Construction Infrastructure (Pilot) design assessment for HS2 Phase One, S1 and S2. This was supported by Arup, as part of a design house joint house venture with Typsa and Strabag. CSJV were responsible for all Early Works and Arup were responsible for all Main Civils Works. …

Read the full article...

Tougher targets included in New European standard for the provision of daylight in buildings

Posted on July 15th 2019

The New European Daylight Standard EN 17037 will be adopted in UK by the end of 2019 and will supersede the British Standard BS 8206-2:2008 ‘‘Lighting for Buildings code of Practice for daylighting’’. A new BRE Guidance will be released early in 2020 to reflect this. All new requirements will need to be consistently applied to planning applications submitted after …

Read the full article...

Learning from Building Performance Evaluation: Improving Build Quality and Customer Satisfaction

Posted on July 15th 2019

Understanding how dwellings perform in reality allows us to provide sophisticated advice and recommendations at the design stage. Performance verification enables a feedback loop for enhanced design, improved build quality and high levels of customer satisfaction. The process of learning how dwellings perform for the people who live in them is vital: For understanding what works well and what doesn’t …

Read the full article...

Energy Storage – The Missing Link

Posted on July 15th 2019

The decarbonisation of energy use through a focus on cleaner generation sources can only reduce CO₂ emissions so far. In order to best utilise low carbon energy, strategies for new developments should consider the role of energy storage. This is not a new concept (Economy 7 storage heaters are a well-established form of storage), but the increasingly dynamic performance of …

Read the full article...