Back from our summer holidays, well rested and looking forward - it’s always a really exciting time of year for us, this year no different: new projects starting and others reaching important milestones.

A result of changing work patterns post covid is there’s now more empty office space than ever. This has been exacerbated by sluggish growth in the economy, and a period of pause, ‘waiting to see’ with the prospect of a change in direction from a new government - now passed.

Here we write about our proposal for the Net Zero Neighbourhood masterplan, which was the winner of the Max Fordham Archiboo Architect’ Pitch, itself inspired by the Max Fordham House - UK’s first-ever verified net zero carbon home.

There’s much in the press about reaching ‘net-zero’ and the role the construction industry has to play. Something that is less often in focus is ’embodied carbon’.

NMB Meets with Gus Zogolovitch: we chatted about custom build homes, embodied carbon and what needs to happen to grow the self build market.

With rising energy prices and a greater emphasis on the climate we’re finding our clients are looking more and more for how they can build their home extensions more sustainably. Here we take a look at how to build sustainable home extensions with a case study of a recent completed project in London.

Here’s the first of our new series: NMB meets. We will be meeting brilliant industry folk, innovators and futurists to discuss their views on what makes great sustainable buildings and places. In turn, helping us shape better buildings and places in response to the climate emergency.

Welcome to the Spring edition of NMB News. It’s been a fine start to 2023…. and we’ve got a spring in our step (sorry)…. so, where to start…. perhaps a few ‘firsts’…. we’ve: finished our first building (our rammed earth arts centre in Kampala); won our first competition (the Architect Pitch see below) and have our first off-grid house project just going into planning.

Two years after we started out, we’ve now got lots to talk about - after much hard work, projects are nearing completion. We’re fulfilling our mission to make low carbon buildings.

So, here’s the first of our NMB News. We will make them: insightful (sharing our knowledge as we learn), outward-looking, provocative (in a good way) and occasional (quarterly at most). And, above all, with a healthy dose of climate optimism. Surely much needed at the moment?

This generation is the first to fully realise the scale of the climate emergency. We are also the first to understand how we can address it. At New Makers Bureau we are striving to leave the planet in a better state than we found it.