house building

As 2022 draws to a close, what mentality must we adopt to achieve success as we fearlessly transition into the New Year? Housing Association Magazine's Joe Bradbury discusses:

TV presenter and architect, George Clarke looks at the lessons we can all learn from the UK’s intrepid self-builders

I love self-build housing. I love self-build housing for a number of very important, but simple reasons.

If someone has the opportunity to self-build their own home, a place they want to live for many years rather than build-to-sell to make a quick profit, then they put their hearts and souls into it.

They care about it so much that they are willing to build something very, very good.

It may even be of a design that is unique and a welcome reaction to the sterile, repetitive blandness often associated with some of the big house builders.

“As the industry faces the biggest adjustment the UK housing market has ever seen, and may ever see, it’s never been more important for new build heating systems to work in harmony”, comments Joanna Crown, Marketing Director at WMS, leading supplier and installer of underfloor heating systems for new build developments in the UK.

In June 2017, a fire claimed 72 lives at Grenfell Tower in Kensington. Eleven months later, Dame Judith Hackitt, who was commissioned to determine the cause of the disaster, released a report featuring eight key recommendations to limit the chances of similar catastrophes occurring in the future.

Those recommendations require building managers to keep digital building records, from the design and conceptualisation phase through its life cycle. With the boom years of High Rise Residential Buildings (HRRB) development between 1953 and 1972, and with 6544 buildings erected in the half-century following the end of World War 2, nearly all of the remaining 270 HRRBs were built in a pre-digital age.

James Hardie Europe GmbH, the leader in fibre cement building materials, has launched the HardiePlank® Product Family which pairs a new level of design flexibility and the unmatched performance of JamesHardie® fibre cement products.

Mention curtain walling to any specifier or contractor and it’s an odds on bet they won’t associate the term with residential projects. However, technical developments have gradually extended the design scope of such systems, first to multiple occupancy housing and subsequently to individual architect-designed homes.
So, what has prompted this? When you look at what curtain walling is this should come as no real surprise. Essentially, it is a façade with framing made of metal, PVCu or timber with vertical or horizontal elements. These are anchored to the supporting structure to provide the functions of an external wall without it being load-bearing. This has positive benefits in terms of installation speed and cost.

Removing barriers to small house builders will deliver better quality homes and happier people, according to the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) in response to a national design audit conducted by UCL for CPRE, the countryside charity, and the Place Alliance, recently published.