By Mackenzie Peters, Global Product Group Manager, Industrial HEFH at MSA Safety. MSA Safety is a global designer, manufacturer and distributor of industry-leading safety products and customises its hard hats via its MSA LOGO EXPRESS® service. How we got to where we are Directive 89/686/EEC, introduced in 1989, aimed to
Manufacturer’s parallel opening window vents feature at the Anna Freud Centre. Parallel opening window vents by leading manufacturer of architectural glazing systems Kawneer were specified for a mental health project that is arguably without parallel. Some 88 of Kawneer’s AA®100 SSG parallel opening vents were used as concealed windows, to
A new brick made from domestic plastic waste has been proven to provide 10 times better insulation than traditional bricks made from clay. Dr Karthikeyan Kandan, senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU), has created a novel brick made entirely from upcycled plastic waste. Believed to
The achievement of Scotland’s five, geographically located hub , the partnerships set up six years ago to build new community facilities across Scotland, will be in the supporting the third annual Education Buildings Scotland 2019 Exhibition, Conference and Awards Dinner at Edinburgh’s EICC on 27-28 November. To date, the hubs have delivered
SNIPEF, the Scotland and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employer’s Federation, is supporting the launch of a new campaign to help keep customers’ tap water fresh by signing up qualified plumbers in Northern Ireland to a UK-wide plumbing register. Northern Ireland Water and WaterSafe, the UK-wide accreditation body for competent and qualified plumbers,
Many people will redecorate the rooms in their home every few years, but the staircase often is neglected and left untouched for many years. Most home have a staircase to get between floors but these can be made to be a great feature of your home. There are many
By Mackenzie Peters, Global Product Group Manager, Industrial HEFH at MSA Safety. MSA Safety is a global designer, manufacturer and distributor of industry-leading safety products and customises its hard hats via its MSA LOGO EXPRESS® service. How we got to where we are Directive 89/686/EEC, introduced in 1989, aimed to ensure the free movement of personal protective equipment (PPE) within the EU by completely harmonising the essential safety requirements to which it must conform. In 2016, this was updated to Regulation (EU) 2016/425. This regulation of safety standards across the EU will have no doubt prevented countless severe head injuries and even deaths. Work remains to be done 2016 statistics from Eurostat, however, reported that 4,409 people across the European Union’s 28 member states were incapacitated long-term due to head injuries at work; 759 workers tragically died. In the UK specifically, these numbers were 254 and 39 respectively. The statistics are sobering, which is why any positive development or product innovation that contributes to better head protection products and compliance can only be positive. Especially so for those that work in the construction industry as construction work can be a particularly high-risk activity. Accidents can occur and head injuries are, unfortunately, a relatively frequent occurrence. They can occur due to a variety of reasons, including falling objects; striking fixed objects, such as unprotected ends of scaffolding poles or other projections; or from restricted headroom. Combatting the challenge of busy construction sites In the UK, in a bid to make construction sites safer, Build UK – the leading representative organisation for the UK construction industry – has developed a harmonised hard hat colour standard for contractors. This was an important step. Colour-coding helps to improve safety by providing consistency in identifying people’s roles on site. Different experience levels, or visitors, are also easier to distinguish. On a construction site with dozens, or even hundreds, of workers, hard hat customisation is absolutely necessary. Customisation, including the printing of companies’ logos, doesn’t just help site managers differentiate workers’ varying roles and responsibilities; it’s also an invaluable marketing tool, enabling smaller and bigger companies alike to stand out from the crowd in an increasingly competitive industry. Customisation can also help to unify workforces and foster a greater sense of collective teamwork and pride. Who’s who? Managing multiple sub-contractors on a busy, multi-faceted project can be challenging and it’s important to remember that sub-contractors may be relative strangers to the workplace and therefore unfamiliar with an organisation’s procedures and rules. Customised hard hats provide a useful reminder of who’s who and what workers’ positions and responsibilities are. In addition, personalisation can also increase the value of a worker’s safety equipment, thus increasing the likelihood that, first and foremost, it will be worn, but also well looked after. Other more fundamental safety features can also be added on, including retro-reflective stickers that enhance the visibility and safety of workers, day and night, and the promotion of potentially life-saving safety messages and reminders. The inclusion of badge holders to hard hats can also add another layer of identification and safety. Compliance can only be positive. It is important to note that the different types of hard hats available currently on the market are not only to produce aesthetically pleasing gears which were meant to function solely for protection but the added features give a wider level of protection. There’s no excuse… Hard hats have come a long way since 1989. Product innovation and technological advancements mean that quality manufacturers provide hard hats that are comfortable, lightweight and durable against the harshest applications. There’s no excuse not to wear them. And now – given increasingly lucrative projects and busy construction sites – the evolution of the hard hat has taken its next logical step: customisation. Knowing who’s who and what they do on site is now an essential safety consideration. Don’t get left behind. For more information, please visit https://gb.msasafety.com/customhardhats
Manufacturer’s parallel opening window vents feature at the Anna Freud Centre. Parallel opening window vents by leading manufacturer of architectural glazing systems Kawneer were specified for a mental health project that is arguably without parallel. Some 88 of Kawneer’s AA®100 SSG parallel opening vents were used as concealed windows, to maintain the same aesthetic as the façade, within AA®100 mullion-drained curtain walling and AA®720 doors on the new £40 million London headquarters of the world-famous Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. The Kawneer systems were specified by architects Penoyre & Prasad as they were a “cost-effective” solution to their needs and enabled them to use the same systems for all areas of curtain walling and rooflights. Architect Sam Frankland said: “We had an aspiration to create a very clean, paired-down façade that would give clear cohesion to the various buildings. Having scissor-action windows helped emphasise the planar quality when the windows are open.” The project has enabled the relocation of the mental healthcare charity to bring together its global expertise in practice, research and policy under one roof from its residential properties in Hampstead to a purpose-built facility near King’s Cross. This comprises a six-storey new-build and the refurbishment of a century-old former chocolate factory and warehouse. All of the Kawneer glazing systems feature a diagonal frit on the glass, with the Kawneer curtain walling featuring on the ground to top floors and the AA®100 SSG parallel-opening vents on all but the ground floor. The AA®720 doors feature on the main entrance and top floor which also features a roof terrace. Sam Frankland added: “We wanted to create spaces filled with light and views out over London so we opted for fully-glazed panels with a simple frit to give an element of privacy and a degree of visual interest to the façade.” The aluminium Kawneer systems were installed over eight months by a team of six from approved specialist sub-contractor/dealer JPJ Installations for main contractor Willmott Dixon. The charity that today bears the name of Sigmund Freud’s sixth and youngest child was first established almost 70 years ago and its approach, that every child and its family should be at the heart of the care they receive, working in partnership with professionals, has been reflected in Penoyre & Prasad’s design. This needed to be striking to reflect the charity’s aspirations to reflect its status as a world-renowned organisation working with eminent academic institutions as University College London and Yale. This itself presented a challenge, bringing together the multiple needs of the individual users of the building, from children and their families in need of support, to researchers, clinicians and internationally-renowned visiting academics attending symposia. At the front, in the space made vacant by the excavation of a former courtyard, is the new six-storey building housing shared conference facilities and the Pears Family School which is sponsored by the Anna Freud Centre. This caters for up to 48 youngsters who have been excluded from school or alternative education provision and helps them return to mainstream education. Penoyre & Prasad worked from the outset with the diagonal motif on the glazing on both the front and rear facades to inform both the transparent elevation and the precast cheeks of the building which they could do very little with as they were both party walls but which nevertheless replicate the diagonal fritting. The five-storey chocolate factory, parts of which had been used as offices since the 1990s, was converted into a combination of head office facilities and therapy, post-graduate teaching and research (part of which had been based at University College London) and break-out spaces for the Anna Freud Centre. Although not listed, heritage officers at Islington Council had still been anxious about how it would be developed. “The client was very keen to have as environmentally friendly a building as possible so aluminium seemed like the natural choice for the curtain wall system which has been used extensively to the east and west facades and as a large rooflight,” said Sam Frankland. Based on the established Kawneer AA®100 SSG POV system, the parallel opening design benefits from excellent ventilation characteristics combined with thermal performance. Increased air flow around the full perimeter of the window enables highly efficient natural ventilation while greatly reducing draughts as fresh air is drawn in the bottom of the window while warm, stale air is expelled via the top, creating full air circulation within a room. This efficient exchange of air can assist with Approved Document F compliance and can enable the window to meet the ventilation requirements of even the most demanding project.
A new brick made from domestic plastic waste has been proven to provide 10 times better insulation than traditional bricks made from clay. Dr Karthikeyan Kandan, senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU), has created a novel brick made entirely from upcycled plastic waste. Believed to be the first of its kind, the brick is constructed using 3D printing and lattice architecture technologies, which involves criss-crossing strips of the plastic materials to form a grid or weave. The design is inspired by nature, after Dr Kandan examined the structure of the Baya weaver bird’s nest; renowned for its elaborately woven construction. “The Baya weaver bird’s nest’s ingenious construction gives it excellent thermal insulation and mechanical properties for inhabitation,” explained Dr Kandan. “Inside there is a central nesting chamber, which makes it the ideal micro-climate for inhabitation. By replicating this structure, we have manufactured a brick that improves energy efficiency of modern buildings and therefore can reduce carbon foot print.” Saad Alqahtani, a first-year PhD student at DMU, carried out controlled experiments on the plastic bricks, under joint supervision from Dr Kandan and Dr Farukh – also a senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the university. To test its thermal insulation characteristics, Saad placed the brick in a hot-box calorimeter – a piece of equipment used to measure the U-value of an object, which can be set up to simulate the regulatory standard for buildings. U-value is a measure of the flow of heat through an insulating or building material: the lower the U-value, the better the insulating ability. The results showed the new design delivered an impressive U-value of 0.25 Watts per Metre Kelvin (W/m²K). This is 10 times more effective than a clay brick, which delivers an average of 2.94 W/m²K. Traditionally, a range of building blocks are required to achieve the regulatory standard U-value, however, the newly designed plastic brick can achieve this on its own. “Our brick, made from all kinds of domestic plastic waste – from coffee cup lids to plastic bottles – exhibits a tremendous thermal envelope over conventional building materials,” said Dr Kandan. A building envelope refers to the exterior elements that protect the property and its inhabitants from the elements and also contributes to keeping the building structurally sound. “This provides significant potential to not only improve the energy efficiency of modern building, but also to conserve space and reduce dead-weight in multi-story buildings,” added Dr Kandan. Saad, who received a PhD scholarship from DMU to complete this work with Dr Kandan and Dr Farukh, said their brick could lead to a new era of energy-efficient construction while tackling the issue of plastic pollution at the same time. “Our work has demonstrated that 3D printed bricks made from household plastic waste are thermally far superior than the existing bricks made in the market,” he explained. “This breakthrough can literally help us build the future.” This project marks the second time this year that Dr Kandan has been recognised for his work to repurpose plastic waste. In August he made headlines when he created a prosthetic limb socket made from recycled plastic water bottles for amputee patients. Saad, who also completed his MSc at DMU, was invited to showcase their work at the prestigious 39th International Workshop on Computational Mechanics of Materials in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in September. “It was a great opportunity to meet industry experts and tell people about our work,” he said. “The next step is to get the brick into commercial production, which we hope to do by the end of the year.” Dr Kandan added: “It is fantastic to see one of our own PhD students taking the lead on this project and sharing our results on an international platform. “There is a constant drive for energy efficient building materials so it is very exciting to know that our brick can outperform the thermal insulation of standard building materials by an order of magnitude.”
The achievement of Scotland’s five, geographically located hub , the partnerships set up six years ago to build new community facilities across Scotland, will be in the supporting the third annual Education Buildings Scotland 2019 Exhibition, Conference and Awards Dinner at Edinburgh’s EICC on 27-28 November. To date, the hubs have delivered 115 education sector projects across the country with a value of £1.45 billion. The event, which brings together Scottish educational built environment and policy professionals, many of whom will be looking at adding new buildings, considering refurbishing existing buildings or wishing to know more about ongoing maintenance, will be able to meet all the hub CEOs and their colleagues who will be in attendance over the course of the two days. Scotland’s hubs are engaged currently on-site with educational projects £358m is a further £675m of projects in development across the country. John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, who will be speaking at the conference has said: “This year’s theme for the 2019 Education Buildings Scotland conference is Scotland’s Learning Estate – Connecting People, Places and Learning and building on the success of previous events. “It is an opportunity for everyone involved in education to come together with those directly engaged in creating great buildings to discuss how the built environment can support the best possible educational outcomes for our children, young people wider communities.” Key figures from all hub will be in attendance from the start of the conference on Wednesday morning at stand F2 at the EICC. They will include the Chief Executive of hub West, Iain Marley, Chief Executive of hub South West, Michael McBrearty, Chief Executive of hub East Central, Gary Bushnell, and Chief Executive of hub South East and Executive Chairman of hub North, Paul McGirk. A series of hub projects have been nominated for awards, the winners of which will be announced at the Wednesday night Dinner. The Scottish Government is the Event’s Partner and its official supporters are Morrison Construction, Portakabin, hub Scotland, Velux, RIAS, Architecture Design Scotland, the Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE) and the Scottish Futures Trust. Attendance at the conference is complimentary for those directly employed in years, schools, colleges, universities, national and local government other public services in Scotland. Delegate rates will apply for everyone else wishing to attend.
SNIPEF, the Scotland and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employer’s Federation, is supporting the launch of a new campaign to help keep customers’ tap water fresh by signing up qualified plumbers in Northern Ireland to a UK-wide plumbing register. Northern Ireland Water and WaterSafe, the UK-wide accreditation body for competent and qualified plumbers, want to tackle the poor plumbing in the home or workplace which can create such problems as strange taste, discolouration, and leaks, by signing up all of the Province’s plumbers to its WaterSafe register. Legally speaking, when water leaves Northern Ireland Water’s mains and enters the pipes supplying a property it becomes the owner’s responsibility to keep it safe and free from contamination. By working together with skilled professionals, however, many of these issues can be avoided altogether or rapidly resolved. Plumbers on the register are fully trained in the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations (Northern Ireland 2009), designed to keep water safe, and not waste it, as well as being appropriately insured with a customer redress scheme in place. In addition, plumbers on the WaterSafe register can self-notify their work to Northern Ireland Water – and issue a certificate stating that the plumbing work complies with the regulations, which protects customers from any legal comeback. Fiona Hodgson, CEO of SNIPEF said, “As an approved WaterSafe scheme provider SNIPEF is all about promoting high standards, quality work, professionalism and regulation in the industry. “We want to ensure that only qualified professionals can carry out plumbing and heating work so that the water is kept safe. Being WaterSafe registered is a way to do this and we encourage qualified Northern Irish operatives to join the register by contacting SNIPEF.” Becoming a SNIPEF member allows qualified plumbers to become WaterSafe registered for no extra cost. Other benefits from becoming a SNIPEF member include access to specialist advice, industry discounts, free listing on its Need a Plumber website and much more. Julie Spinks, director of WaterSafe, said: “Being a member of WaterSafe is a great way for competent plumbers to provide immediate reassurance to their customers that they are qualified to do the job and keep their drinking water safe. “WaterSafe is supported by all the water companies in the UK, as well as the water industry regulator, the Drinking Water Inspectorate. Membership comes with many benefits and we urge plumbers who are proud of their work and want to find out more about joining, or taking the final training steps to join, to get in touch today. Members of WaterSafe will benefit from; free promotion and branding, customer reassurance and a direct link to Northern Ireland Water. To join WaterSafe, plumbers must be qualified, have a water regulations certificate, and be a member of an existing approved contractors’ scheme. In Northern Ireland this can be the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation or the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering. Once a member of one of these schemes, plumbers can join WaterSafe for free. Plumbers interested in finding out more can visit watersafe.org.uk/howtojoin or call 0333 207 9030. For more information on a SNIPEF membership call 0131 556 0600 option 1.
Many people will redecorate the rooms in their home every few years, but the staircase often is neglected and left untouched for many years. Most home have a staircase to get between floors but these can be made to be a great feature of your home. There are many materials that you can use with wood being the most traditional material used. One of the latest trends in staircase design is to combine wood with glass to create stunning staircase designs. Glass combined with oak offers beauty and simplicity which brings a touch of class to the staircase. Combining glass balustrades with solid oak handrails create a timeless look and brings traditional carpentry in to the 21st century and makes the staircase the focal point of the property. A bespoke staircase has the potential to transform your home and by using glass and wood you can create a feeling of light and space and is becoming increasingly popular nowadays. One of the best finishes involves the use of American white oak with glass balustrades to create a light and airy feel which combines the beauty of the wood with glass to form a stunning staircase design to forms the centre piece of your home. One of the leading staircase design and installation companies in the world is Jarrods Staircases and Carpentry who are specialists in bespoke wood, metal and glass staircases. They create every staircase from scratch which means every staircase they design is bespoke and designed to perfectly fit your home in a style that suits your lifestyle and your budget. Glass Staircases Glass staircases let light flood into dark hallways and breathe life into enclosed spaces. A bespoke glass staircase is one of the most popular products that are available in the staircase market place. You can replace a regular balustrade with a glass balustrade to increase the elegance of your stairs and transfer your home with a modern glass staircase. Glass staircases let light pour into your home and give the illusion of more space in your home. Oak Staircases Oak is a great wood for staircase construction and looks very high class when installed and designed properly. You also have a great range of options with oak, you can have an all oak staircase or you can combine oak with glass to create the perfect staircase design for your home. You can even have spiral staircase made of oak to add the x factor to your home. Metal Staircases Steel is another great material you can use for your staircase to create a stunning design. Steel can also be combined with Oak or glass to create a stunning looking staircase which is both strong and good looking. Iron can also be used for staircases and you can create fantastic looking staircases and it can also be combined with both wood and glass. Floating staircases Self-supporting or floating staircases can give a dramatic look to your home and your visitors will be amazed when they enter your home. Floating stairs can be made out of wood, glass and metal or a combination of all if required. Glass balustrades combined with wooden stair treads can create a breath-taking look. What ever type of staircase you prefer there is a great choice available on the market place and there is something available for everyone’s tastes and budget.
