Articles:

As such, embodied carbon is increasingly playing a much bigger role in our day-to-day focus on sustainability as architects and designers..

At Bryden Wood, starting with productivity-led value drivers, we developed a hybrid steel and concrete mid span platform (Platform II).We then proved the concept on the design and delivery of The Forge, a commercial building for Landsec, the first ‘platform’ building..

There are bound to be other mid span options: using other value drivers as a start point will no doubt give rise to other types of mid span platform e.g.a timber based or light gauge steel..However, it’s critical that, as an industry we converge on a small number of platform options.

If we lose control of the number of options available, we are back to square one - we lose the benefit of standardisation, and we then lose the simplicity this creates in terms of technical compliance.. To encourage industry adoption, we have open sourced all our data, experience and learning on Platform II.. A digital library embeds specifications and compliance into upfront design and tracks these through to delivery..The smaller number of elements to manage vs. a traditional design, captured in a digital library, will facilitate the creation of accurate, consistent and well-organised information and version control..

This digital library will structure data so that design can more rigorously demonstrate compliance, earlier in the process.

It embeds sets of rules/data requirements regarding interfaces, technical requirements and standards that sit behind the models, giving a more holistic set of information.This was made possible by the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has brought the industry together.

The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) and the officials in The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) worked closely to forge a much better link between government and industry.We’ve seen the CLC successfully deal with things like keeping construction sites open and the launch of the talent retention scheme.

All of this has given industry a new, unified voice in government; an important step for a sector which hasn’t necessarily been widely listened to in the past..This type of unification has clearly demonstrated the benefits industry engagement provides, showcasing to the government how the construction sector can support recovery.