Designer Contracts is preparing for a staged return to work. The company is bringing some staff out of furlough, resuming vital fitting services, pushing ahead with plans to move into a new and much bigger head office facility and opening a third unit in Scotland.

As the number of new homes being built increases, how we manage water needs careful consideration. The new houses that are being built today must be designed to be water-efficient, flood-resilient and save energy. Paul Winnett, General Manager for Building Services and Industry at Xylem Water Solutions, shares some key challenges and strategies house-builders should consider.

Increasing numbers of machines, people, buildings and technology means our world is getting noisier. And this issue isn’t just limited to the outside world, with new research by Geberit finding that unwanted noise inside the home affects more than half of us – and it’s having a direct impact on our wellbeing. Here, Sophie Weston, Channel Marketing Manager for Specification and Developer at Geberit, explores the significance of unwanted noise in the home, and why, in its new White Paper (A Sound Solution), it is calling for a radical rethink of acoustic regulations in residential environments.

Quality, attractive, high-performance hard landscaping is key to the successful completion of commercial and domestic projects, delivering a sense of community that adds place and value. But what lies beneath these beautifully designed areas is equally important to their performance and should not be overlooked, as Julian Thurbin, of specialist pedestal manufacturer Wallbarn, outlines.

With sustainability high on the corporate agenda, many construction businesses are looking at ways to reduce their carbon footprint by choosing greener building materials, some even made from waste carbon dioxide. But could they be doing more?

Two major benefits, surprisingly, have come along in the wake of Coronavirus. These are a greater awareness of the community (the wartime spirit) and greater awareness about keeping healthy, active and interested (both personal and public). The best architects and designers have always realised that these factors are fundamental to the success and appreciation of well-designed public buildings.

Freebooter is a small building located in the centre of the island of Zeeburgereiland in Amsterdam, facing the IJ river, consisting of two duplexes of 120m2 each.

Anna Broadbent, Senior Architect at Saunders Boston Architects, trained at Kingston School of Art, the Royal College of Art and the University of Cambridge. Prior to qualifying, she worked at de Metz Forbes Knight and Carl Turner Architects. In 2008, she started her own company, focusing on high-end renovations and extensions for homes in London and conservation projects in the Home Counties. With a desire to work on larger-scale residential, mixed-use and more socially conscious regeneration projects, she joined Saunders Boston Architects in 2016.

As one of the UK's leading providers of rainscreen systems, metal fabrications and bespoke full envelope solutions - quality is at the core of the PSP Group's operation. Here, Chairman Heath Hindmarch explains why they made a vast investment to provide a single point of procurement for the entire building envelope.

The engineered timber industry has been founded on the principles of advancing sustainable building technology. Led by innovators such as B&K Structures, the use of timber technology in UK construction has undergone a renaissance in recent years which has greatly increased the use of ground-breaking products such as cross laminated timber (CLT). Here Managing Director of B&K Structures, Andy Goodwin discusses the proposed building restrictions and the unintended consequences.