The predicted growth of cities around the world provides opportunities to build places that will promote equality, reduce our impact on the environment and ensure economic success. Preparing for the challenges of cites in the future and managing the risks of today’s cities goes beyond smart urban-scale infrastructure. Technologies and solutions range from the scale … Continue reading “Healthy Cities Index”
QUANTUM, a new research project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, is aiming to close the estimated average 25% gap between designed and actual energy performance and 1.5% for comfort performance in European buildings. Research indicates that poorly commissioned and operated building management systems are often responsible for this gap, generally … Continue reading “Quantum”
The actual energy consumption of buildings in Europe often significantly exceeds the expected energy requirements. This gap in energy performance can arise from construction errors or from differences between the way a building was intended to be used and how it is actually used. An energy management platform could help to reduce this energy gap … Continue reading “Hit 2 GAP: Highly Innovative building control Tools Tackling the energy performance gap”
Over the last few years a number of media reports have made a link between specific fire incidents and photovoltaic (PV) power systems. With all electrical systems there is a small risk of fire. Given the prevalence of PV systems now in the UK, it is appropriate to investigate the potential for fire incidents Despite … Continue reading “PV Fire Risks Review”
There is a lot of data that BRE collects and not all of it is utilised properly. Access to data and information for things like programmes for computer software is key as building information modelling (BIM) and new technology comes into play and the ‘Internet of Things’ becomes more prevalent, the access to this data … Continue reading “BRE DataLabs – An open platform for data sharing and reuse in the construction sector”
The core objective of the project is to define cost-benefit optimised “packages of measures” based on efficient and quality-guaranteed technologies for the refurbishment of the public building stock towards nZEB that are standardised and adopted by builders and building owners. From this stems three basic objectives: – State-of-the-art assessment of the public building stock through … Continue reading “South ZEB IEE Project”
There are now a plethora of standards/schemes for assessing the sustainability performance of buildings that are operating from different regions around the world, including in Europe (e.g. BREEAM, HQE, DGNB), North America (e.g. LEED, Green Globes, Living Building Challenge, WELL Building), the Middle East (e.g. Pearl), Asia (e.g. CASBEE, BEAM, Three Star, Green Mark) and … Continue reading “International Standards Review”
The C4C project aims to address some of the core challenges arising for the construction industry from the increasingly widespread adoption of computerised Building Information Modelling (BIM) The C4C project addresses the issue of BIM “Ownership” by adopting the approach that each party involved creates and stores (and is responsible for) their own BIM information … Continue reading “Cloud for Co-ordination”
Concrete is widely used in construction due to its ability to provide structural capacity and function cost effectively and at scale. However, its role in construction does not lend itself to creativity in design. High-end clients typically demand state-of-the-art designs, presenting a challenge in a sector where every building is essentially different to the last. … Continue reading “CAMBER – Concrete Additive Manufacturing for the Built Environment using Robotics”
There is a growing need to demonstrate the value and benefits of BREEAM in order to increase voluntary uptake of BREEAM schemes. The recent part BRE Trust funded publication ‘Delivering sustainable buildings: Savings and payback’ reported research by BREEAM and Sweett Group that applied cost data from real construction projects to three case study buildings … Continue reading “Delivering sustainable buildings: Savings and payback”
