CU1611

INDUSTRY news
UK MISSING THE MARK ON HOUSING TARGETS
Nearly 90% of local authorities
believe that the Government's
housing targets will
be impossible to meet due to a
lack of planning resources,
according to a new joint
research report from the Federation
of Master Builders (FMB)
and the Local Government
Information Unit (LGiU).
The report, the first of its kind
to draw upon the experience of
both local authorities and SME
house builders from right
across the UK, also found that:
• 64% of builders and 45% of
local authorities see lack of
planning resources as a barrier
to developing more small sites
• More than half of councils
deliver fewer than 40% of
homes on small sites
• Builders and local authorities
call for councils to be
allowed to raise planning application
fees.
Brian Berry, Chief Executive of
London South Bank University
(LSBU) is has announcing
a £50K award from the
Higher Education Funding
Council for England (HEFCE)
to support a research pilot conducted
by the University’s
School of Architecture and the
Built Environment (BEA), looking
at encouraging students
and staff within the AEC arena
to collaborate and work together
better on joint projects.
The research pilot launches
this month and is set to run
from December 2016 until May
2018 for a period of one and a
half years.
The project is being led by
Jennifer Hardi, Senior Lecturer
at LSBU’s School for Architecture
and the Built Environment,
together with her colleagues
the FMB, said: "The Government
aim to build one million
new homes by 2020 won't be
realised unless more SME
housebuilders can enter the
housing market. That's why the
barriers that SME house
builders currently face need to
be removed. We know that the
availability of suitable small
sites and the difficulty of getting
planning permission on them
are two of the biggest barriers
these firms face. In this
research, both local authorities
and SME builders identify
under-resourcing as a key barrier
to allocating more small
sites and getting planning permissions
in place on them.
Too often small sites are dealt
with entirely by inexperienced
officers. There simply aren't
enough senior and experienced
planners to make the
system work effectively."
www.fmb.org.uk
£50K FUNDING FOR AEC RESEARCH PILOT
Steve Pittard and Professor
Andy Ford, who were both in
the original bidding team.
Jennifer Hardi said, "The culture
within the UK’s construction
industry currently shows a
tendency towards silo working,
where different professionals
working on the same project
often fail to communicate well
with one another about the different
stages of that project. In
the past this has proved
extremely frustrating and even
led to delays in projects being
completed and deadlines
being missed.
This is not a sustainable or
efficient way for the UK’s construction
industry to be working
if it is to retain its competitive
edge in a post-Brexit economy."
www.hefce.ac.uk
NEW WAYS TO DESIGN FOR MEP DISCIPLINES
The new version 2016.11 of
the MEP design software
MagiCAD for Revit and Auto-
CAD introduces new productivity-enhancing
workflows on
top of Revit and AutoCAD
technologies. MagiCAD offers
a comprehensive and
advanced solution for all ventilation,
piping and electrical
BIM, design and calculations
needs. MagiCAD 2016.11 supports
Revit 2017-2016 and
AutoCAD 2017-2013.
The new release offers a
complete MEP calculation
solution on Revit platforms,
with the capability to perform
all of the thorough MagiCAD
calculations now also on
native Revit families. In previous
versions, MagiCAD for
Revit has already offered full
design functions with both
native RFAs and MagiCAD
RFAs, as well as full calculations
with MagiCAD RFAs.
The new version also integrates
consistently with native
Revit units of measurement,
optimises drawing legends for
quantity take-off documents
and bills of materials, and
provides easy functions for
locating potential errors and
failed objects in the model
after IFC export.
www.magicad.com
INTERACTIVE, 3D MODELING PLUG-IN
RDV Systems has released
123BIM Publisher, a 3D
modeling plug-in for Auto-
CAD Civil 3D and Bentley
MicroStation. 123BIM Publisher
enables engineers and
visualisation experts to use
their existing CAD platforms
to democratise their designs
by publishing their models
into a browser-based Google
Earth-like 3D environment
that is fully interactive.
By using 123BIM Publisher
to import external data such
as aerial photographs, GIS
data, SketchUp models and
much more, designers will be
able communicate intent
quickly and inexpensively.
"123BIM Publisher was built
in a way so that actual, complex
project design created in
any industry standard CAD
platform can be seamlessly
converted to 3D digital models
and uploaded to the
cloud for collaboration and
public engagement on the
123BIM platform. This is not
trivial since the 3D digital
documents created by the
engineers are huge and
require dedicated software to
be viewed," said Dolio Kafri,
VP North America Sales with
RDV Systems.
www.rdvsystems.com
8
November/December 2016