UK Construction Week 2016 - BIM Level 2 - Was it worth it?

Last week I was at UK Construction Week and participated in a panel discussion on the main stage.

The title for the session as set by the organisers 'BIM Level 2 - was it worth it?' was deliberately provocative. The BBC's Victoria Fritz did a very good job of adapting to the subject matter and chairing it. Malcolm Taylor Crossrail, Mac Muzvimwe Faithful+Gould, Guy Hammersley BRE and Sasha Reed, Bluebeam where also panellists.

Malcolm Taylor from Europe's biggest construction project Crossrail talks BIM

In terms of preparing for the discussion, I thought I'd ask Twitter what it thought of the key question...

My snap poll on Twitter the morning before the event

As we discussed the topic, an artist illustrated the discussions

Innovation Arts drew what we discussed

...and finally, I tidied up my preparation notes and popped them on our NBS website as an article...
- https://www.thenbs.com/knowledge/bim-level-2-was-it-worth-it

My thoughts

If you have an opinion on the subject - please add it as a comment below...

Graduate careers at NBS

Our @theNBS twitter account tweeted quite a nice video last week showcasing some of the NBS team members who joined us as graduates.

Claire who designed the new look National BIM Library, Calum who has worked on NBS Create and our Revit plug-in, Andrew who manages the software development of our product offerings for manufacturers and Jane from our BIM authoring team are all featured.

Eagle eyed National BIM Library fans, may notice that the back of Claire's head is now on the website homepage too :)

The new look National BIM Library website

For more information about careers at NBS please see:
- theNBS.com/about-nbs/careers

First Fiver - Newcastle Snow Dogs

I saw the #firstfiver campaign on Twitter last month, where everyone is encouraged to give the first new design five pound note to charity and thought, it was a really nice idea.

Earlier this week I got my first fiver (the change from a lovely jacket potato at independent Newcastle sandwich bar Hippo House) and wondered who to give it to?

Well, the easy decision was St Oswald’s Children’s Hospice who NBS are currently supporting as part of the Newcastle Snow Dogs initiative. Our snow dog was painted by Newcastle College - black and white - and called WorGeordie.

Lots of fund raising activities are planned over the next few months - but nice to be able to give my #firstfiver to a good cause.

Some Snow Dog photographs from lunchtime walk around the Quayside and then evening walk up to Newcastle University and back...

Arriving into Central Station - On the right in the distance is the 'New castle'

Our very own Wor Geordie Snow Dog with our Old Post Office building in the background

Three snow dogs on display in the Sage Gateshead with RIBA Sterling Prize winning Millennium Bridge in the background

Outside of the Sage Gateshead

Pitcher and Piano pub with Tyne Bridge in the background

Newcastle Eldon Square shopping centre

The beautiful Theatre Royal on Grey Street

Looking up Grey Street to Central Arcade, Greys Monument and the Monument Mall

So, if you are wondering what to do with your first fiver - then maybe a donation to one of your local charities would be a nice touch.

Free resources from NBS

At NBS, we have our paid-for subscription offerings such as our specification tools and the services we provide to help connect manufacturers with specifiers. But, over and above this, we have a number of resources that are free to the industry to make use of.

With this in mind, it was fantastic to see an email pointing out one example of how the NBS Periodic Table of BIM was being used to help inform the industry about the subject.

The following video shows Berian Davies from BAM Group Ireland deliver an introduction to BIM using the NBS Periodic Table as the structure of the session:

Other free resources you may want to explore include:

• The NBS National BIM Library - standardised generic and manufacturer BIM objects
  
• The NBS BIM Toolkit - define who is doing what and when on your BIM projects
  
• The various NBS plug-ins for BIM design tools - Revit, ArchiCAD, Vectorworks...
  
  The NBS BIM Object Standard - A collection of standard requirements and associated guidance to create BIM objects to
  
• The RIBA Plan of Work Toolbox - Template schedule of services and design responsibility matrix
  
• The RIBA Product Selector - Tens of thousands of product catalogues and specifications

Hopefully, a few of these help with your daily project work. It's great to see professionals making use of these when I am out and about (and of course, occasionally on youtube!).