Editor's perspective

In November last year Saint-Gobain announced its collaboration in a case study project known as Stand 47, at Monaghan Farm on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The project will see the building of an energy-efficient home and will serve as a case study to demonstrate that housing in South Africa can be successfully executed using predominantly energy-efficient materials and still provide the qual...

Recent reports highlight an increasing number of retail developments in rural areas and the consensus in the property investment sector seems to be that, for retail developments, the lower income market is the place to be.  The Lephalale Mall is one new rural retail centre currently under construction. It is located in the new town of Onverwacht in Limpopo. The 14 800m² first phase of the...

At Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio, Brazil, in June, the UN Global Compact Corporate Sustainability Forum released the results of an independent global trial of LED street lighting undertaken in 12 of the world’s largest cities.  The LightSavers trial found that the use of LEDs (light-emitting diodes) in street lighting can generate energy savin...

The newly legislated SANS 10400-XA: 2011 (November 2011) is set to change the way we build in South Africa.  Hans Schefferlie, executive director of the AAAMSA Group, spoke recently at the South African-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry about the rationale behind SANS 10400-XA and its implications for the building industry. Schefferlie was speaking as a prelude to Glasstec 2012, the in...