img(height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=2939831959404383&ev=PageView&noscript=1")

Setting the standard

Government BIM Toolkit award gives UK construction a digital leg up

BIM standardisation has moved a step closer with the announcement today of the £1m Technology Strategy Board’s contract for the BIM Digital Toolkit. The award, to the RIBA Journal’s sister company NBS, will deliver the final pieces of the Level 2 BIM jigsaw, as defined by the Government’s BIM Task Group.

Based on the RIBA 2013 Plan of Work, the free-to-use toolkit will enable a clear and standardised discussion on who is responsible for what level of detail on 5000 objects from very generic geometries in the first instance, right down to specification. Each of these levels is to be explicitly and robustly defined with drawings, notes and technical information to help derisk projects in a way that extensive Excel spreadsheets have never managed to. All the new work, with collaborators across industry (including the RIBA and BDP), will be underpinned by the tried and tested specification tools of NBS.

Estimates have put the market for UK BIM related export at £30bn annually by 2020, based on the UK maintaining its BIM lead. On the same day as the announcement NBS also shared its work to create an open standard for BIM objects. Drawing together the many UK and international BIM-object related standards, including those of the British Standards Institute and ISO, this forty page pdf should bring a new level of transparency to the creation of BIM objects.

Rail gauges, weights and measures and electrical sockets show how essential standardisation is to progress, to get the things working efficiently beyond proprietary standards. The toolkit will create a shared language and software for construction. So look forward to the future of BIM standardisation and the toolkit’s first phases being delivered as soon as spring 2015. 

Latest

The Architects Registration Board’s commission on the future of professional practice experience for architecture students has issued its findings. Their aims are laudable, but questions remain around implementing them, writes Alex Wright

Alex Wright breaks down the findings of the ARB’s commission on the future of professional training for architecture students

Flat roofs require many considerations, from practicality and appearance to material selection, performance, cost and maintenance. Mark Austin, technical director at SpecStudio, lists the elements to review to develop a thorough specification

Mark Austin, technical director at SpecStudio, lists the elements to review to develop a thorough flat roof specification

Great architects deeply understood, and responded to, their context. We should talk the language of now, but never let the status quo limit us, argues Muyiwa Oki

We should talk the language of now, but never let the status quo limit us, argues Muyiwa Oki

In Blackheath, south London, Francisco Sutherland Architects replaced a failing 1980s glazed linkway with a barrel-vaulted space that offers glimpses of newly landscaped courtyards

Francisco Sutherland Architects replaced a 1980s glazed linkway with a barrel-vaulted space that offers glimpses of landscaped courtyards

Propose an installation that 'transcends utility' for a square in Bridgetown, reimagine the civic centre of an historic market town, bid for a spot on a construction consultancy services framework - some of the latest architecture competitions and contracts from across the industry

Latest: Caribbean pavilion contest