A two-day short course on one of the industry's most important topics – sustainable building – will be running in Auckland and Christchurch in June, held by Otago Polytechnic.

The first call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for working with the Crown on the development of housing within Christchurch's new Central and Eastern frames has been released this week.

Introducing a new Detailed blog covering the many aspects of passive thermal design relating to the built environment.

See above for exclusive videos of Minister of Housing Hon. Dr Nick Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown speaking at EBOSS's Specified 2013 event. Dr Smith and Mayor Brown addressed the challenges facing architects, designers and construction professionals in the building industry, including the large growth projections and government approaches (both central and local) to meet these.

Finally Nick Smith gets support from Auckland City regarding the Auckland Housing Accord.

Steel framing is a growing trend and as such it's important the right people get the right information to ensure the integrity of the product arriving on site is not compromised due to a lack of knowledge or inappropriate design solutions.

With the increase in 3D design, it's no wonder services like Sketchfab are popping up. Claiming they will do to 3D visualisation what Youtube did for video, Sketchfab provides a simple service to enable designers to publish, share and embed their files in a visual and interactive way on any website.

Some of our most frequently asked questions relate to limitations of glazed internal partitions.

There is more than one way to reduce noise in interior spaces.

In March MBIE published further explanation around the design of commercial toilets to further elucidate the design of toilet layouts for commercial building, adequate privacy and line of sight and accessible toilet layouts.