Breaking BIM

In his second instalment, Hoare Lea’s Ben Roberts explains why buildings need to be able to talk to each other on common terms

Brains storm – Digital Catapult’s Hackathon

To mark the launch of a database containing information from the Building Performance Evaluation programme, digital, construction and property experts teamed up to discuss how they could use data to close the performance gap. Alex Smith finds out who stood out from the IT crowd at Hackathon

Down to zero – winner of Ashrae modelling competition

An ASHRAE competition pitched teams of industry practitioners against each other to come up with the best model of a zero-net energy building. ‘Team IES’ won Best Energy Use and the firm’s Liam Buckley, who coached the team, describes the winning project

The home of graphene

The first big breakthrough in graphene took place in Manchester, and now the city has a £61m facility aimed at developing the material for everyday use. CH2M Hill’s Ian MacAskill describes the challenge of designing services for the extraordinarily complex National Graphene Institute