2023, what’s in store?
Happy New Year from all of us at New Makers Bureau!
To celebrate the new year - we asked a few quick-fire questions to our founding director, James Hampton, about what NMB were up to in 2022, and what is to come in 2023!
As it's the start of a new year, whilst both looking to the past and the future - what are the goals for NMB for 2023 and beyond?
- Become a B Corporation, we’ve started the journey of becoming a B Corp and hope that by the end of this year, we will have made it - a great way to ensure that what we do has a clear purpose with measurable benefits.
- We’re aiming to be counting the embodied carbon on all projects at each RIBA stage by the end of the year.
- Build more and better - there are some really interesting projects on the horizon for 2023 (but not quite ready to share).
What would you like NMB to do more of?
- Collaborate more… anyone fancy partnering, collaborating, chatting, get in touch!?
- Share more. We aim to make our carbon accounting (and other key information) available on our website.
- Make more. We have a great workspace (Bureau in the Design District in North Greenwich) but we’d like to be a bit more messy and make more models and bigger samples.
NMB's ethos is to tread lightly on the earth; how has NMB tried to accomplish it? And have you encountered any bumps in the road, in trying to reduce your embodied carbon in construction?
- Reduce waste, recycle materials, use less and measure the carbon impacts of all of our projects, we also have a few red lines - we don’t use concrete (or blockwork) above ground level and we don’t use new bricks (unless they’re made of recycled content). But, it doesn’t always work as we would have wanted or could have anticipated. Products aren’t available, or are slow or difficult to source, and sometimes we could do more to help contractors to start looking for certain items earlier as they’re used to their current supply chains (fast and cheap but not good for the planet).
What projects have you got going on at the moment?
- There are three projects which will complete in the next few months: the Arts Centre, Downton Avenue and Durnsford Avenue. We’re awaiting a planning decision for our 6 mews houses and café in Walthamstow and we have three other projects in the early planning stages. Lots to keep us occupied. All of the projects do what we want to do to varying degrees, all are certainly lower in embodied carbon than a conventional build and some are really low!
What was your favourite moment for NMB in 2022?
- Not one moment, but many - watching the Arts Centre coming out of the ground and (almost) completing…. A brilliant site team Localworks (also design partner) and client (32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust) - oh, and can’t wait to go and see it in the flesh in March!
