This year, the RIBA launched its very first RIBA Stirling Prize award for Reinvention. The inaugural winner was Houlton School in Rugby – a scheme on which OFR is part of the design team

UK government has confirmed that it will adopt an 18-metre height threshold for second staircases in all new residential buildings. In response, we’ve released updated plans of our second staircase concept – something which will support the viable development of safe, tall buildings in an increasingly difficult construction market. Here, Rich tells us more.

Competency has always been important in the construction industry and in this new article, our colleague Steven Ferreira – who along with colleagues James Daniels and Ahmed Maani recently completed his Chartership – talks about the importance of professional qualifications, and the mechanisms in place at OFR as we support colleagues through their academic endeavours.

From RIBA Stage 2 through to completion, we have worked on behalf of HLM Architects as part of the team delivering the incredible new National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) building. Principal Fire Engineer, Graeme Shaw shares how our fire engineering guidance on the building will help to raise the bar for collaboration across sectors…

We are always looking for new and innovative ways in which we can support our team with personal and professional development. The OFR Technical Institute was set up to offer bespoke training and has helped many colleagues since to develop their knowledge and skills. Here – in the last of this week’s blog series on the Institute – our colleague associate director, Tom Bentley tells us more….

Investment in personal and professional development is an important part of our culture at OFR, and today – as we continue our new series of blogs, in which colleagues tell us about their experiences with the OFR Technical Institute – we meet Muthia Khairunisa. Muthia gained her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Kyoto University, Japan and her Master’s in Fire Safety Engineering from the IMFSE program – here she talks about benefitting from the OFR Technical Ins

Leading fire engineering consultancy, OFR Consultants working in collaboration with the Structural Timber Association (STA) is offering the wider industry valuable clarity on the fire safety design of mass timber buildings. 

This week we are launching a new series of blogs, in which colleagues tell us about their experiences with the OFR Technical Institute.

Today we start with Bianca Coutinho who​ joined the business in 2021 and has recently been promoted from graduate to fire engineer. She has previously worked within the in fire engineering field with businesses internationally in Brazil and Ireland. Here she tells us more…

The construction industry has a responsibility to make high rise buildings safer and more sustainable… Matt Brook Architects made a proactive move to address this with the design of a core that was safer for residents and firefighters as well as being highly efficient. Working collaboratively with OFR, the core has been developed and validated through testing. Read more about the process here.

Having completed works at the Baldovie Waste to Energy plant at Dundee, we are bringing our expertise to a number of other projects in the UK. Here OFR director Jamie Gibson explains more…