Comment Articles

Senior landscape architect at Arup, Sally Armour discusses weaving health and resilience into our cities through green building envelopes. Increasingly, the human population is becoming more urbanised – and by the end of the century it is estimated that 7... View Article

Creating educational buildings with zero energy usage and carbon footprints is perfectly possible. So why aren’t we building more? Neil Smith of design firm UK Energy Partners shares his thoughts. There’s no doubt the way we design and construct buildings consumes... View Article

Teachers know schools best and their input can be vital during a redesign. Pellings partner Nicolas Maari argues for the benefits of encouraging teachers to have a say in the design of UK schools. The soaring demand for school places... View Article

The UK is finally embracing the opportunities of the build to rent sector in a bid to ease the widespread housing crisis. Norman Hayden provides a progress report. With a rapidly-growing population and people living longer, the pressure on housing... View Article

Norman Hayden calls on architect Chapman Taylor which has been on an international journey, starting at Scotland Yard. The Metropolitan Police headquarters at New Scotland Yard, central London is one of the most recognisable buildings in the country. With its... View Article

Why did you become an architect? It was almost by accident. I decided to enrol at the Architecture University in the Polytechnic of Milan after a brief conversation with a girlfriend from senior high school who was upset due to... View Article

Martin Townsend of BRE Global looks at the importance of building standards which reflect local needs across the globe, in order to share best practice and drive change. There is a rapidly growing appetite for rating methodologies that can be used... View Article

Autonomous vehicles and driverless cars are definitely coming our way, but what impact will they have on way we design public spaces? Rachel Skinner of WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff argues that they will have a positive effect. Autonomous vehicles will... View Article

Alan Yates, technical director, sustainability at BRE Global looks at how the BREEAM assessment method can assist architects in optimising building design, while keeping their clients happy too. The commercial property sector is a fiercely competitive and fast-changing environment where clients... View Article

Architect Alireza Ravanshad is the creator of Dandi Space, a whole new architectural approach to combining work and living space through smarter design. Here, he makes the case for challenging the traditional spatial divide between working life and home life.... View Article

The BRE’s James Fisher describes how commercial clients are seeing the need to analyse and improve the environmental impact of their buildings in use, to increase asset value. For many businesses, operating their buildings presents a major cost overhead, often... View Article

Andrew Tang of Pellings spells out the design lessons for secondary schools as they expand to meet the intake ‘bulge’. Having worked for the past 10 years, largely in the primary education sector, I have been involved with a number... View Article

Architects, contractors and suppliers to the brick industry gathered at Arup’s UK head office recently to hear how the quintessential British building material was seeing a resurgence in a range of urban regeneration projects in London and across the UK. The audience invited by... View Article

September 15, 2008 is a date Phil Waind, director of WG+P, will not forget in a hurry. As the global financial crisis bit hard, his fledgling practice hit what turned out to be its low point. “Lehman Brothers filed for... View Article

With a work reach that spans the continents, Atkins architecture practice clearly lives up to the title of the overall Global group of which it is part. Atkins is one of the world’s leading practices – indeed, it is formally listed... View Article

Norman Hayden hears the case for more urban extensions put by Tom Drew of LK2. All across the country there is a struggle going on to access facilities which support health, well-being, community and leisure. Developments in our industry have... View Article

Joint winner of the Sunday Times British Homes Awards’ Development of the Year (with more than 100 homes) Countryside’s Abode community proves that volume housing does not have to look and feel like a faceless executive estate This exemplary development,... View Article

A new and updated Green Roof Organisation (GRO) code for green roofing has been launched by the National Federation of Roofing Contractors (NFRC) – the UK’s largest roofing trade association. This includes more detailed Living Roofs and Walls technical information... View Article