Building Insights

This episode of Building Insights is the first of a series of podcasts in partnership with Dulux, in which we interview Andrew Cleaver, National Sector Manager for Healthcare at Dulux Decorator Centre on a range of specialists about how colour can be judiciously applied to benefit building users. The first episode looks at the particular needs of dementia sufferers when it comes to interior design, and how a careful approach to colour can help people continue to maintain safe and enjoyable lives.

Adrian Swan left David Wilson Homes, after a long stint with the firm, to found Swan Homes in Nottingham in 2009. He is a housebuilder who takes immense pride in the quality of the work his firm produces, embodied in his chairing the Home Builders Group at the Federation of Master Builders. James Parker, editor of Housebuilder & Developer, spoke to Adrian about his drives and challenges going forward in a revealing interview.

Architect Bill Dunster OBE is a leading light in sustainable design globally, having pioneered several zero carbon developments in the UK since the 1990s, including the Stirling Prize-shortlisted BedZed residential scheme in south London.

After working at major firms including Hopkins, and teaching at the AA, he founded ZedFactory and produced a range of energy-positive schemes, as well as key prototypes like the Zero Bills House at the BRE. Now working under the name Zed Power, his award-winning completed projects are seen across the residential, mixed use, public, education and workplace sectors. In 2018, RIBA published his book, ‘Zed Life: How to Build a Low-Carbon Society Today.’

Bill Dunster remains a fearless advocate for a ‘fad-free,’ uncompromising approach to the low carbon buildings we urgently need, and this podcast is a fascinating delve into his ethos.

Nigel Ostime is a partner at Hawkins\Brown architects and is a key figure in sharing knowledge and improving best practice, including taking part in various research within the practice and working within RIBA’s Client Liaison Group. This has included work around the post-Hackitt fire safety agenda, and the potential of the Building Safety Act to increase the role of architects in achieving more robust procurement for accountable, fire-safe designs for high-risk residential schemes, in the wake of Grenfell.

In this podcast Nigel discusses the impact of the recent Building Safety Act, introduced to bring a range of improvements in building procurement to help ensure greater safety in future. He explains how although many of the provisions won’t be in force until secondary legislation is produced, there is a changing picture already in terms of a potential larger role for architects as the Principal Designer on high-risk projects.

He believes robustness is sorely lacking – but that there are improvements within the Act - such as the new gateway approach to checking designs as they progress. Nigel comments on the findings of our recent white paper on fire safety and design accountability, and ponders whether the act will be clear enough on Design and Build contractors’ responsibility, for example.

Ostime admits the agenda is very challenging for the wider industry, but also that  more information is needed for architects throughout the various stages of the design process, as they are likely to be, or are already, given a large amount of responsibility for areas such as fire safety in projects. 

He has some key insights on this new agenda for safer future buildings. Given the severity of the potential risks of getting things wrong, as highlighted so tragically at Grenfell Tower, Costume believes that architects simply have to ‘roll up their sleeves and do it.’

Thanks to Siderise, Kingspan Timber Solutions, Pilkington, ROCKPANEL, Promat and Morley Glass for sponsoring this episode.

Kelly Worrall got the bug for construction in 2015 when she began renovating properties with her partner, who’s a builder. They enjoyed it so much that they set up a development company, NH construction, specialising in masonry and stonework in home improvements, with her husband being a trained stonemason. 

Kelly has had a successful career as a marketer, and formed Yorkshire Marketing Consultants in 2019, which soon began to focus on construction trades and home improvement firms. Her experience and interest in housebuilding has given her the inside knowledge to on marketing success in construction, particularly the benefits of using social media, and online advertising. She has some great insights for housebuilders on the do’s and don’ts of marketing your construction business.

As online marketing, like social media itself, continues to evolve fast, keeping on top of it in a tough market can be challenging. Bearing that in mind, this Builder’s Voice is very much worth a listen. 

Thanks to the Federation of Master Builders for the collaboration on this podcast.

In the seventh edition of Building Insights, and the first to feature a self-builder, editor of Selfbuilder and Homemaker magazine James Parker speaks to Diane Newbery, who has two projects under her belt, both challenging but for different reasons. 

They discuss her most recent build, which was designed for low carbon emissions, as well as to provide her with a ‘forever home’ with ample space and light.

She was an ideal subject for the first Building Insights episode dedicated to self-build, because she was very clear on what she wanted, and very focused on getting it. 

The conversation has some great knowledge for anyone looking to follow in Diane’s footsteps, and also touches on Selfbuilder and Homemaker’s recent reader survey on creating a low carbon home.

Thanks to Samsung, Epic Insulation, Mitsubishi Electric, Marley, and West Fraser, for sponsoring this podcast.

Builders' Voices is a new podcast which we think is pretty unique in the market.

 In 2021, netmagmedia, which publishes Housebuilder & Developer magazine, launched our Building Insights podcast to speak to key voices in the industry and delve into the big issues.

The podcast has been a big success, including with our sponsors. Builder’s Voices is a new strand however, giving a rare platform for SME housebuilders to share their ideas and experiences.

To bring these 'Builders' Voices' to you, the editorial team at Housebuilder & Developer magazine has collaborated with the Federation of Master Builders. The largest trade association in the UK construction industry, the FMB represents the interests of small and medium-sized building companies, and is committed to quality in UK housebuilding.

 In this episode, Jack Wooler, deputy editor of Housebuilder & Developer magazine, talks to Rob Bailey, MD and co-founder of Swallow Hill Homes, about life running a small firm in 2022.

Swallow Hill is a small but highly regarded housebuilder based in Nottingham, and a member of the FMB. In this first episode, he really grabs the opportunity to share his thoughts on the business case for making a quality product, not just the cheapest product. However he also candidly expresses his worries on the current inflation storm hitting the industry.   

Huge thanks to the Federation of Master Builders, who are working closely with us to bring you some of the best Builder’s Voices out there.

James Parker, managing editor of Housebuilder & Developer, speaks to Sue Illman of Illman Young, a well-established practice of landscape architects, about how sustainable urban drainage systems can help futureproof developments against rising incidences of flooding.

Although there have been some major recent shocks to the UK, from Covid to now increasing international security worries, the issue of floods has not gone away. While increased flooding events might be an intermittent problem, they are on the whole, becoming more severe, and more damaging for livelihoods and businesses.

The climate is changing, the UK is 7% wetter than it was 40 years ago, and at the same time, there's a target to build 300,000 homes a year. They have to go somewhere, and unfortunately in many cases, that means building on flood plains. Building homes, roads and car parking often contributes to the problem, affecting how surface water behaves and overloading drainage systems. 

There are established ways to help developments mitigate the effects on local drainage of the floods that will inevitably hit them. One of the most well-regarded approaches is a collection of solutions known as SuDS (or Sustainable Urban Drainage). However, should you use it, and how difficult is it to install? 

Housebuilder and Developer magazine recently surveyed readers on their knowledge of SuDS, and their attitude to it, in the light of the fact that Government guidance advises developers to adopt the approach. We wanted to discuss the results of this Industry Viewfinder white paper with an expert in the field.

We decided to speak to landscape architect Sue Illman, a passionate SuDS advocate, to give her reactions to our report, give you some practical approaches, and comment on the developer’s role in futureproofing schemes against climate change. A former president of the Landscape Institute, we managed to catch her in a week in which she had been discussing with Defra, and the Department for Levelling up, Communities and Housing, just what the regulatory framework should look like, to drive SuDS forward. One of the many insights she revealed in an excellent conversation was that regulation had been somewhat fudged in the past, but the centre is finally putting SuDS at the top of the agenda.

In this episode, Jack Wooler, deputy editor of Housing, Management & Maintenance magazine, speaks to Jack Dangerfield of the Town and Country Planning Association, or TCPA, about the omission of legislation around the health of a home, as well as the state of planning in the UK as a whole at present.

Discussing our recent research on what landlords and housing professionals believe makes up an exemplary healthy home, the most important elements of such a property, and the barriers to the adoption of these elements – in which a shocking lack of respondents would describe even their own housing stock as healthy – Jack Dangerfield discusses how the TCPA’s Healthy Home’s campaign is one route forwards. 

Thanks to Glidevale, Mitsubishi, Envirovent, Cornerstone, Aico and FireAngel for sponsoring this episode.

In the  fourth instalment of Building Insights, architect Alina White of Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios speaks to the managing editor of ADF, James Parker, about sustainability and wellness in commercial buildings. Thanks to Hambleside Danelaw, Methven, Reynaers, Kestrel Aluminium Systems, and James Latham, for sponsoring this episode. 

Alina is an architect who joined Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios in 2002, and was made an associate in 2017. She has worked in both Bath and London for the practice, and has focused on commercial projects, as well as some high-profile residential and schools.

She recently led on a major office scheme now underway in the centre of Birmingham which really illustrates some of the key themes of recent research we’ve undertaken into sustainability and wellness in commercial projects. As well as aspiring to be a low carbon building (both in terms of emissions and embodied carbon), the architects believe Three Chamberlain Square delivers a new level of wellbeing for staff – in a post-Covid world where employees need to be encouraged back to workplaces.

Architects Datafile conducted an Industry Viewfinder audience survey of architects on Sustainability and Wellness in Commercial Buildings, on this very hot topic currently. Alongside wellness, staff are increasingly aware of the contribution of buildings to climate change, and want to work in premises and for organisations that are explicitly reducing their footprint.

And with staff costs representing around 80%-90% of many organisations’ expenditure, any solution that limits extra recruitment costs, and increase retention, is a core business benefit that is making clients keen to invest in design. Attracting the best staff now means creating environments, in retail and industrial settings as well as offices, that offer health benefits to staff, as well as lower emissions. 

Clients are increasingly seeking to measure and coordinate those design efforts, for example using established international standards like WELL

They are also seeking out firms like FCBStudios, and architects like Alina, for these often demanding projects, so it’s great to have her insights for the podcast.