In today’s construction news, read about the Stone Demonstrator, a project by London’s Design Museum, which uses stone for the facade, frame, foundations, and floor slabs in an effort to encourage the British building industry to employ the “ultra-low-carbon” material. Meanwhile, officials talk about ‘getting Britain built’; a large portion of the pipeline ‘lacks the workforce, stability, or financing to move beyond announcements’, according to a paper written by Oxford Economics for the Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA). Finally, with more speakers, themes, exhibitors, and visitors than ever, London Build 2025 is the largest year yet. The expo has become the most important and prominent event for the built environment in the UK.
Design Museum’s Stone Demonstrator Encourages Construction With Stone in the UK
Original Source: Design Museum pushes for stone construction in the UK with Stone Demonstrator
London’s Design Museum’s Stone Demonstrator uses “ultra-low-carbon” stone for its facade, frame, foundations, and floor slabs to encourage the British building sector to utilise it.
Stone, a classic but sometimes disregarded structural material, is featured in the Stone Demonstrator, a 1:1 scale prototype of a tiny apartment block at Empress Place in West London’s Earls Court development.
Stone replaces all concrete, burned clay bricks, and nearly all steel in this ordinary kind of structure, lowering carbon emissions by 90%.
The Stone Demonstrator showcases various stone structures.
The Design Museum’s Future Observatory, a research program that promotes the green transition, collaborated with architects Groupwork and engineers Webb Yates and Arup, who employ structural stones.
The demonstrator was meant to illustrate to the local construction sector how easy it is to build with stone using existing supplies and normal codes, according to Groupwork founder and chairman Amin Taha.
“Its purpose is not to promote stone for sentimental reasons but as an ultra-low-carbon alternative to reinforced concrete and steel structures clad in fired clay bricks,” he said.
The pre-tensioned stone frame can support 80-storey skyscrapers.
“At 90 per cent less embodied carbon and the same price as concrete and steel frames and fired clay bricks, it’s the ethical choice,” he said.
The foundations of the Stone Demonstrator are built of reclaimed stone blocks from a local bank, used like old building footings.
Webb Yates and Arup designed the frame above. This contemporary stone construction method uses pre-tensioned stone blocks to form beams and columns and drops them on site.
2 hybrid stone floor slabs
Steel tendons are threaded into stone cavities and crushed by steel plates to provide secure, disassemblable, and reusable building parts.
This frame is not necessary for a three-storey building, but Taha and Webb Yates associate director Liam Bryant suggested using it in 80-storey towers instead of reinforced concrete or steel frames.
The Stone Demonstrator offers two slab flooring options: a pre-tensioned stone solution like the frame but in a different shape, and a new timber-stone product.
Bricks are carved from raw stone.
Webb Yates invented it, and Bamberger makes it using stone slabs on dowel-laminated timber.
All of these components replace concrete, which Future Observatory director Justin McGuirk called “the ultra-processed food of the construction industry”—a modern convenience that didn’t improve on raw.
“Concrete is stone that you dug up, crushed, burnt, mixed with other stone, dredged sand from probably under the sea, mixed with water and chucked in the back of a lorry that has to spin at a regular rate,” he said.
“Stone construction is identical. “”You dig it up, cut it up, and maybe add rebar,” he said. “It’s one-third of the process.”
The project aims to promote stone construction in the UK.
The Stone Demonstrator targets steel, concrete, and fired clay bricks, the London vernacular for exterior walls, with a self-supporting facade of raw stone bricks.
While clay bricks are rarely scrutinised for sustainability, the Stone Demonstrator team noted stone bricks are again 90% lower in carbon emissions, a considerable potential saving given that 2.5 billion bricks are used in the UK each year.
The Stone Demonstrator team calculated that a steel frame with a clay brick facade would emit 40,000 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide, while a reinforced concrete frame would emit 32,000 kilogrammes.
In contrast, the Stone Demonstrator produced 3,000 kg of CO?..
The Stone Demonstrator emitted 90% less carbon than a steel, concrete, and burnt brick structure.
In 2024, Dezeen examined stone as a low-carbon, modern structural material in Stone 2.0.
Many experts supported the material; however, architect and researcher Natalia Petkova stressed that it must be carefully selected, sourced, and transported.
Photography by Bas Princen.
Empress Place should host the Stone Demonstrator until June 2026. Dezeen Events Guide lists current architecture and design events worldwide.
Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline “starting to Crack”
Original Source: Construction and infrastructure pipeline “starting to crack”
According to a new study, skills shortages, insufficient investment, and chronic delivery delays are halting major projects in the UK’s £530bn construction and infrastructure pipeline.
Oxford Economics’ analysis for the Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA) warns that while governments talk of ‘getting Britain building’, much of the pipeline ‘lacks the workforce, clarity or financing to progress beyond announcements’.
Construction machinery and operator suppliers say they cannot plan or invest without predictable workloads, leaving supply capacity “dangerously thin”.
The paper argues that the UK needs 250,000 more construction workers to complete planned projects, yet nearly half a million will retire in 15 years.
Labour shortages limit operations in 44% of enterprises, the poorest rate in any major UK sector.
Apprenticeship completion has dropped to 53%, and construction youth wages are below retail levels.
Construction productivity has fallen 0.1% annually since 1997, lowering production per worker beneath 1990s levels.
About 14% of key government projects are on track, and less than half of the National Infrastructure Pipeline has confirmed costs or funding.
Investors and contractors face a “crisis of confidence” as funding certainty drops from 68% this year to 33% by 2030, according to Oxford Economics.
Bridging gaps
Before the Autumn Budget, the CPA offered policy ideas to the Treasury to stabilise deliveries and restore supply chain business confidence:
Publish a fully costed National Infrastructure Pipeline update with financing beyond 2028.
2. Reduce employer National Insurance increases to reduce building supply chain labour costs.
3. Allow hire firms to reinvest £1.3bn in new capital equipment by fully expensing leased assets.
4. Keep the Fuel Duty rate to safeguard SMEs without red-diesel relief.
5. Maintain Business Property Relief to prevent family-run firm succession closures.
6. Reform the Growth & Skills Levy to provide employers complete flexibility and fund all SME apprenticeships.
CPA CEO Steven Mulholland said, “This report is a call to action for ministers. Unrealistic ambitions, unclear finance, and a decreasing workforce are straining Britain’s construction pipeline.
“Unless the government restores confidence and fixes the fundamentals, half-built promises and rising costs will define the next decade.”
The plant-hire sector is one of the most capital-intensive in the economy, and our members take on much of the investment risk needed to build Britain. Private capital may fund public infrastructure without increasing national debt with stable policy and predictable pipelines.
“If ministers match our willingness to invest with clarity and confidence, we can create the growth, jobs, and prosperity Britain needs.”
Olympia London is Hosting the Uk’s Largest Construction Expo on November 19th and 20th, Breaking Records
Original Source: The UK’s leading and largest construction show is back at Olympia London on November 19th and 20th, and it’s breaking all records!
London Build 2025 has more speakers, topics, exhibitors, and attendees than ever before. The expo has become the UK’s most important built environment event.
The biggest edition yet is expected to draw over 38,000 people. Olympia will host a construction festival with live DJs, entertainment, interactive workshops, and networking events for London Build 2025. The industry’s most exciting blend of business, learning, and fun awaits.
London Build has the most diverse and ambitious conference agenda with 750 speakers across 12 CPD-accredited stages, including Housing & Real Estate, Skyscrapers & Tall Buildings, Architecture, AI & Digital, Modern Methods of Construction, Marketing, Sustainability, Fire Safety, Building Security, and Diversity & We have something for everyone!
This is your one-stop shop for cutting-edge products and solutions with over 450 exhibitors from leading providers in sustainability, digital construction, building materials and design innovation.
Must-attend conference sessions!
Growing the UK: Government and Industry Work Together to Meet Housing Goals
Unleash Data Management: Improve Collaboration and Project Efficiency
Creating a Circular UK Construction Industry
Early Engagement in Building Safety Act Navigation
Meet Architects, Contractors, and Developers Accepting Modular Construction
Addressing UK Housing Crisis: Delivering Sustainable Social Housing for Tomorrow: Innovative Technologies and Strategies Transforming MMC
How AI is changing building and energy efficiency
Broken Concrete Ceiling: Women Leading Industry
Icon Design: What makes a skyscraper last?
Going to COP30: What’s Next for the Built Environment?
750+ amazing speakers, including:
Miriam Ozanne, AECOM Regional Building Performance Director
Balfour Beatty Group Sustainability Director Joanna Gilroy
Kim Sides, BAM UK & Ireland Construction Executive Director
Bowmer & Kirkland Group Health & Safety Director Mark Blundy
Galliford Affordable Homes Sector Director Angela Brockbank Try
Gensler Strategy Director, Principal Jane Clay
Jacobs Director of Inclusive Design Rachel Smalley
Kier Group Digital Twin Project Director James Franklin
Rossella Nicolin, Europe Sustainability Head O’Rourke
Liz Blackwell, L&Q Group Sustainability Head
Design & C2P Director Tim Carey Mace
Multiplex Construction Digital Transformation Manager Michael Bacon
Morgan Sindall Design Management Head Jamie Young
Louise Barr, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Construction Products Reform Deputy Director
Persimmon Homes Building Safety Head Tom Weller
Alex Plenty, Skanska Digital Construction Head
Milena Davis, VINCI Building Early Careers Head
Zaha Hadid Architects Associate Director Bidisha Sinha
The whole UK construction sector, including senior reps, attended.
AECOM, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, AtkinsRealis, Balfour Beatty, BAM Construct UK, Barratt Developments, BDP, Bellway Homes, Berkeley Group, Buro Happold, Enfield Council, Foster + Partners, Galliford Try, Greater London Authority, HOK, Homes England, HS2, Kier Group, L&Q Group, Laing O’Rourke, Mace, McLaren Construction, Morgan Sindall, Mott MacDonald, Network Rail, Sir Robert McAlpine, Sisk, Skanska UK, Transport for London, VolkerWessels UK, Wates Group, Wilkinson
The latest innovations and live demos with 450 exhibitors:
Volker Wessels, HSS Hire, Etex (Siniat/Promat), Quelfire, Bull Products & Cygnus, Ecobat, Aeroseal UK, AI Skills Hub, Sherwin-Williams, Bradbury Group, Chelsea FC, Laing O’Rourke, Bull Products, Gleeds, Saint-Gobain Group, Armatherm, PWC, Southern Renewals, Smeg, Toyota, Howdens, Technal, Rockwool, Acrow Bridge, Hempel, Peel Ports Group, Enterprise/VolkerFitzpatrick, HS2, Chevron
Details of the event
19 and 20 November (9:30 am–5:00 pm).
Olympia (Grand & National Halls), Hammersmith Rd, London W14 8UX
Visit www.londonbuildexpo.com to register for your free pass and view the event schedule.
Summary of today’s construction news
In simple terms, In 2024, Dezeen’s Stone 2.0 content series examined stone in detail as a possible low-carbon, contemporary structural material. Architect and researcher Natalia Petkova stressed that the material needed to be carefully chosen, sourced, and transported, even though many specialists spoke in favour.
Meanwhile, according to a new study, the UK’s £530 billion construction and infrastructure pipeline is beginning to break, with major projects coming to a standstill due to chronic delivery delays, poor investment, and a lack of skilled workers.
Finally, this is your one-stop shop for innovative goods and solutions, with over 450 exhibitors from major suppliers in the fields of sustainability, digital construction, building materials, and design innovation.