News

Carbon Challenge Needs Whole-life Views, Not Half-truths

31 Oct 2019

Against the backdrop of climate change, the construction industry needs to chart the roadmap to a net-zero-carbon society by 2050.

This requires an intelligent and informed industry discussion about embodied and operational carbon. Crucially, it now calls for a reinvigorated focus on the whole-life performance of buildings and assets.

Cafe Concrete @ Coin Street - This is Visual Concrete

18 Oct 2019

The Concrete Centre’s popular event Cafe Concrete will return on 29th October 2019 at the Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre, situated on London’s Southbank.

Reactive Fire Safety Regs Ignore Tragedies Waiting to Happen

07 Oct 2019

It’s a red herring to suggest that ‘avoiding another Grenfell’ is the reason we need stronger fire safety regulations.

Quite rightly, preventing tragedies is a priority for the ministers, the Fire Brigades Union and others using this language to criticise the pace of change, but a focus on not repeating the past exposes one of the greatest flaws of our regulatory system.  Simply put, it’s too reactive, addressing individual failings exposed by disaster rather than all known risks.

Making Places

07 Oct 2019

There are few areas related to building development that generate as much debate as housing, from the size and type of tenure, location and density, to environmental considerations such as energy efficiency, noise and comfort.

A recent report from the Government advisory Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission is stimulating fresh discussion around the subject of beauty. Elaine Toogood of The Concrete Centre reports.

Delivering Housing that is Resilient to Fire and Climate Change

02 Oct 2019

A forthcoming conference, Resilient Housing, a collaboration between Modern Masonry, Brick Development Association, The Building Centre and The Concrete Centre will be providing the latest guidance and technical expertise to enable the design and delivery of long-lasting and high-performance homes.

Huge Turnout for Engineering Seminar

24 Sep 2019

On 12th September we returned to the Royal College of Pathologists for our autumn seminar. The evening started with prize giving to the winners of our student competition Structural Concrete 2019 by the chairman of the judges, Roger Hewitt.

New London Architecture event: Towards zero-carbon London

19 Sep 2019

New London Architecture held a half day conference on 17 September entitled ‘Designing for a changing climate: towards zero-carbon London’. Among the nine speakers was Elaine Toogood from The Concrete Centre, who provided a round-up of everything the cement/concrete sector is doing towards delivering net zero carbon, including an overview of the progress that has been made to date.

Structural Concrete Student Competition Winners Announced

12 Sep 2019

The Concrete Centre’s annual student competition, in partnership with Laing O’Rourke has been won by a team from the Imperial College London. The 2019 competition brief for teams of engineering students was to design a laboratory building which is to be built on a prominent site on the outskirts of a large UK town.

Raising the Bar Competence Report: Explained

31 Aug 2019

Earlier this month the Competence Steering Group released its first response to Hackitt – an interim report on competence schemes for all people working on high-risk residential buildings. If implemented, it could be one of the biggest shake-ups the industry has seen in decades. But has the report been set up to fail?

Firms to be Saddled with Costs of Improving Competence

31 Aug 2019

One of the key figures behind a 150-page report into how to improve competence in the industry has admitted the proposals will see firms saddled with extra costs.