Nick Nisbet, Vice-Chair of BuildingSMART UKI, provides a brief update on the progress of the organisation in addition to this year’s priorities
BuildingSMART is taking an active role in the newly established UK BIM Alliance. We know that as our industry engages with BIM level 2, they are increasingly aware of how central standards are vital. BuildingSMART has the links to International (ISO), European (CEN) and UK (BSI) standards. We have nominated two board members to engage with the BIM regions and BIM4 groups, and we are engaging with the UKBIMA work streams.
BuildingSMART has transferred its secretariat and administrative functions from BRE to CIRIA, where we sit alongside buildOffsite as independent operations. We felt this was important so as to maintain our independence as organisations such as BRE, BSI, and LR offer more BIM related services. We are very grateful to CIRIA for taking up the challenge and excited to start this new chapter in the life of the Chapter!
Our governance has also changed. The old board has been replaced by a strategic advisory board, which includes industry leaders, and an operational board which will guide technical and user activities within the chapter. Complementing the two boards will be a broader advisory group, drawn from stakeholders and users within the industry.
We have taken the opportunity to start the revamp of our website and to launch a frequent NewsWire for our members alongside our quarterly newsletter
The Rooms
But the main focus of our new year’s resolution is to serve the UK community and our members through our ‘Rooms’ – our open forums for discussion the need and role of standards. The ‘infrastructure’ room, led by Phil Jackson, is set to lead the debate on COBie and COINS and on how the UK asset dictionaries relate to international activities. It is one of the most active rooms at international level – it moved swiftly to achieve its first published standard, Alignment 1.0, in 2015, and has exciting work on the stocks.
The ‘building’ room, led by Martin Simpson, has taken up the challenge of the ever growing confusion around ‘level of detail/development/information’ – for now, let’s just call it LoX (X for unknown). The outcome from our first discussion is now informing a joint UK/US project within BuildingSMART International to unify in a single framework the many, many approaches. Don’t just wish us luck, join in!
Our ‘product’ room, led by Paul Surin, is now engaging with the CPA/LEXiCon project to make sure that the excellent work being done in the UK can go forward to lead the international work on products and attribute terms. We have walked into a huge problem, but we know a lot about how to fix it.
Finally, BuildingSMART is nearly twenty-one years old. Let’s get the party started!
Nicholas Nisbet MA(Cantab) DipArch(UNL)
Director, AEC3 and Vice-Chair buildingSMART UKI
buildingsmart@ciria.org
