Opinion

Project manager Hugh Moore highlights the progress being made in the Clyde Gateway area in developing a district heating and cooling grid - a renewable energy project with four other European participants. When I travel to Paris this week for the next meeting of the D2 Grids Steering Committee,

Frances Tait, who works in the construction and engineering team at Womble Bond Dickinson, outlines the combustible cladding legislation changes set to be introduced in Scotland. Everyone's full attention has been on the Building Safety Bill (now the Building Safety Act 2022) receiving Royal Assent

Andrew Kubski, director of development and asset management at WSHA, believes a pioneering housing project in Glasgow can offer insights for other projects wanting to procure and develop to the Passivhaus standard. West of Scotland Housing Association (WSHA) is currently developing the largest

Alice Minick, an associate at Dentons UK and Middle East LLP, believes the Court of Session case Van Oord UK Ltd v Dragados, which overturned an adjudicator's decision on the grounds of a breach of natural justice, provides an interesting opportunity to examine a successful challenge of an

Christoph Ackermann, a principal at BDP, outlines how good design of healthcare buildings can deliver improved wellbeing for all. What is a hospital’s primary purpose? To offer a diagnosis for disease. To treat the sick and injured. Or to provide shelter in a series of buildings for those duri

Andrew Hill, lease advisory partner at Knight Frank Edinburgh, discusses rents within Scotland's commercial property market. The pandemic has been with us for two full financial years – it, therefore, feels like an apt time to look back on how that has affected the rents occupiers can expect t

Detailing analysis in a quarterly report from Landmark Information Group, Richard Hepburn, managing director of Millar & Bryce, delivers a snapshot of the Scottish property market. 2021 was a challenging year for the Scottish property industry, so most of us were cautious in our hopes

Ash Sheikh, sales and marketing director of Muir Homes, describes how developers are factoring in the needs of home workers into the designs of new homes. Homeworking or a combination of work split between home and office is here to stay. All the evidence points to the hybrid work pattern remaining,

The built environment impacts hugely on the quality of our lives – and by extension on our health and wellbeing. Karen Anderson argues that wellbeing should be a key mission of architecture and urban design. "Architecture is an art when one consciously or unconsciously creates aesthetic emotio

Jennifer Smart, head of sustainability programmes, Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC), discusses the opportunities for a zero carbon built environment in Scotland's bioeconomy. In Scotland’s fight against climate change, we have a number of tools in our armoury that stand us in goo

Amy Pairman, associate and construction law expert at Brodies LLP, explores the practicalities of what needs to be done, now the restrictions on rebated fuels are in place. WHAT'S CHANGED

Leona Duff, a solicitor in Anderson Strathern LLP’s commercial litigation team, outlines the new limitation rules being introduced under the Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018 from 1 June 2022. The law

The MD of engineering business Dougall Baillie Associates, Fergus Adams, argues that the increasing rate of return to the office can be good for everyone. The obituaries for office-based working were hastily wheeled out when the country had to adopt remote working overnight two years ago, but it ver

Ryan Fletcher, managing director at Cullross Ltd and senior director at jmarchitects, looks at developing new homes for the future and the important role that modern methods of construction, including off-site units, are playing. I have been in and around building sites since I was a boy and ha

Ryan Gilluley, managing director of Lanarkshire-based GCM Ltd, considers the war in Ukraine from the perspective of the Scottish construction sector. No sooner had the effects of the pandemic on the construction industry started to ease than another global crisis threatens to push up costs.