Uniclass 2

I am doing a Pecha Kucha presentation today as part of the Leeds Met ThinkBIM conference.

I like a good challenge - so I decided to pick Uniclass 2 as the subject matter. It should be a joy of a topic to cover in 20 slides with 20 seconds a slide. A summary of the presentation is below:

What is wrong with existing Uniclass?
Ironically, it is not unified.

1. There is no logic between many of the tables. For example Table G Elements and Table J Work Sections. An internal wall is G-252. Plasterboard within this wall is J-K10.
2. Civil Engineering and Buildings have no relationship. So we have H-7321 Lighting for Civils and G-6431 for Buildings. This is a real problem for rail projects - these typically have buildings (station waiting rooms) as well as civils (rail, tunnels, bridges).
3. All of these tables were designed for a paper way of working. The future is digital objects representing the real world. Not paper.

Silos for buildings and civils - change is needed

So how do the new tables work?
There are a number of new tables now under review. The new classification is logical and unified. There is also a single Work Results table that unites all of the tables. Some slides to demonstrate this below...

Table CO - Complexes (eg. a recreation complex)

Table EN - Entities (eg. a building or a bridge or a tunnel)

Table AC - Activities (eg. dining or changing)

Table EE - Elements and Table SP - Spaces (breaking down your building further)

Table SS - Systems and Table PR - Products (eg. a washbasin assembly or a tap product)

As this is unified. And as this is all "built for BIM". It makes a perfect classification system for BIM data such as COBie. This is shown in the screenshot below:

Uniclass 2 - Perfect for COBie

I'd suggest that the benefits of good classification grow as you move from practice to project to portfolio. Clearly a client with a large portfolio of buildings with a well-classified digital record of these is the holy grail. It could be argued that you could even go to the next stage with Government and portfolios.

How can I find out more about Uniclass 2?
My blog post above is a bit of a "dummies guide". There are some far better resources on the web:

• Official CPIC consultation page:
  http://www.cpic.org.uk/en/uniclass/
• RIBA's Stuart Chalmers fantastic "search/visualise the data" tools:
  http://www.bimgateway.co.uk/uclass2/table/
• Detailed article by NBS John Gelder on Uniclass 2:
  http://www.thenbs.com/topics/practicemanagement/articles/unifyingUniclass.asp

The tables are currently up for consultation. The first tables should be published in January.