​Building Regulations, Codes and Standards is a practical guide to the requirements of the building regulations, explaining how to achieve compliance in order to secure safe, sustainable and healthy developments. 

Together, the book and supplementary digital checklists provide a practical resource for ensuring compliance across all technical areas, showing how requirements of safety, environmental performance and occupant wellbeing can become hand-in-hand considerations to be achieved as a coherent whole. Features include

• overview of basic definitions and requirements within the building regulations in England, including functional requirements and guidance contained in approved documents for domestic and commercial development 
• supplementary digital checklists that provide a one stop aid to compliance with all technical requirements 
• coverage of changes to the building regulations introduced in 2022, including changes to Approved Document B as a result of the Hackitt Review 
• comparison of building regulations and advanced codes and standards that are applied in Europe, North America, Australasia and Japan 
• overview of leading voluntary building rating schemes such as BREEAM New Construction, the Well Building Standard and Home Quality Mark 
• blueprint for an internationally applicable regulatory framework as a means of tackling global challenges such as climate change, encompassing all relevant technical areas, design process considerations, and including digital tools that will make it easier to obtain, share, analyse and store data consistently from project to project. 

Building Regulations, Codes and Standards is an essential practical reference that is suitable for practitioners across a range of built environment disciplines, including engineers, architects, surveyors, building inspectors, and legal professionals, as well as researchers and students in this area.

Purchasers of the print book can access the supplementary digital checklists by contacting: [email protected].

Book reviews

Building Regulations, Codes and Standards: A Guide for Safe, Sustainable and Healthy Development is an essential resource for anyone who is looking to understand how the building regulatory ecosystem can and should contribute to building design that meets the needs of society and our planet – now and into the future. A robust discussion on the Building Regulations 2010 is enhanced by summaries of building regulations in other countries, voluntary building rating schemes, and essential components for safe, sustainable and healthy development. After setting the scene with where we are today, Mark Key challenges us all to look at what a global framework for building standards might look like, what it would take to get there, and how we will need to upskill our thinking and approaches to achieve the holistically designed well-performing buildings which are essential to our future. An informative, valuable, thought-provoking treatise.

Brian J. Meacham, Ph.D., Meacham Associates, Massachusetts, USA

This book is a skilful blend of the deeply practical and the highly visionary.

Time-pressed practitioners will turn first to Chapter 4’s excellent guide through the forest of Building Regulations and codes applicable in England and use its digital check lists to focus on getting their Building Regs submission right first time. That’s well supported by an informative analysis of the historic purposes and legislative evolution of our existing standards.

And visionaries will rejoice at Dr Key’s meticulously-evidenced case for creating a reformed international Building Regulatory system in response to the global climate crisis, with well-being and the UN Sustainable Development Goals at its heart. That alone makes this book compulsory reading for policy makers and idealists like!

The Rt Hon. the Lord Stunell OBE, House of Lords, London

Building on an impressive career as a senior building control professional in local authorities in the North of England, Mark has written a comprehensive text on building regulations, codes and standards. First explaining why we need these at all, he moves on to describe their evolution in England and the current system of functional requirements and supporting technical guidance. He then compares this with practice in a number of international countries, and outlines the role of voluntary rating schemes. Finally, he argues persuasively for a set of global standards as we face the ever-increasing consequences of climate change. Anyone reading this book cannot fail to be scared by what lies ahead if we do not take action now.

Paul Everall CBE, Former Head of Building Regulations, UK Government