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  The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance and urgency of designing learning environments to promote and protect health. Now, many are asking, what makes a healthy or health-promoting school? What defines healthy? What strategies should we target and prioritize to design healthy environments? More than four decades of research confirms that school buildings are…

  We cannot ignore the escalating environmental crisis. By 2030 the planet will be home to over 8.5 billion people, meaning the challenges of urbanisation, resource scarcity, waste, pollution and emissions will continue to increase – unless we act now.  Although many believe the answer to these challenges lie in electrification, clean energy and technologies,…

  When it comes to how governments can lead the transition to a sustainable future, we often think only of the laws and regulations they can enact to steer companies and citizens in the right direction. While those are important, governments can also take more direct action — by changing their own purchasing habits through…

  According to government stats, there are around 3.1 million people working in construction, who are the most at risk during a heatwave due to working outdoors and at height. With temperatures rising again this summer in certain parts of the UK, building maintenance company Spectrum have provided tips for construction workers to keep safe…

  Investors and asset managers expressed more reservations about Canadian commercial real estate this spring than when they were queried last fall, but they remained generally more optimistic than their peers in the United States. Newly released results from the REALPAC/Ferguson Partners Canadian Real Estate Sentiment Survey for the second quarter of 2022 distill opinions…

Despite a slow start to the hurricane season, “the next Ida or Sandy could still be lying in wait,” warned FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. Atmospheric and oceanic conditions still favor an above-normal 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, according to NOAA’s annual mid-season update recently issued by the Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service….

  In late July, tornado touchdowns in southern and eastern Ontario and Quebec left power outages and massive cleanup for communities, businesses, and residents caught in the stormy path of destruction. Canada is the world’s second most tornado-hit nation after the United States, with 80 to 100 such incidents reported annually from March through October….

For those who are involved in the design and construction community, it is likely that you have encountered the topic of mass timber construction over the last few years. And for good reason! When sourced from sustainably managed forests, the use of wood as a replacement for concrete and steel on larger scale construction projects…

As our world reopens from COVID isolation, we are entering back into undefined territory – a form of hybrid existence. As architects, in our hybrid, post COVID world, technology is driving design and the use of physical spaces across multiple disciplines – to continue providing people with individualized experiences, we need to innovate rapidly, think…

  Stuart Purton, UK Lead for Training and Onboarding at Chubb Fire & Security on why the new Fire Safety Act 2021 which came into force in May, offers clearer directions on meeting compliance. The Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017 and the subsequent inquiry highlighted the need for changes to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety)…