Tuesday 24 September 2019

Uniclass 2015 - Resources

At the weekend one or two people on Twitter asked if I could post some of the NBS videos demonstrating how to use Uniclass 2015 so they can use them when explaining classification to others.

So, here are some links to resources that some may find useful.

If you do download them and use them - then please credit NBS (theNBS.com/Uniclass) for use of the content and put a tweet out to help spread the word :)

Short video files showing the concepts:
These have been exported to WMV format so they should work fine when embedded in a Powerpoint. Download below:
- Google Drive Folder containing videos
01-Uniclass2015-IntroductionSequence.wmv

02-Uniclass2015-ClassifyingSpecifications.wmv

03-Uniclass2015-ClassifyingDrawings.wmv

04-Uniclass2015-ClassifyingData.wmv
Explainer article:
In addition to these videos, there is also a good 'What is Uniclass' explainer article from NBS Head of Classification Sarah Delany:
https://www.thenbs.com/knowledge/what-is-uniclass-2015
What is Uniclass 2015?

Download the tables:
...and of course there are the classification tables themselves. Download them for free or quickly query them using our online widget at:
thenbs.com/uniclass

Download the tables and play with the widget

Friday 13 September 2019

Construction Project Information - Old School

I got handed some old project documentation today that was used to help inform the development of the very first National Building Specification in 1973.

This is from 1971 and I assume the original authors of the NBS took lots of 'best practice' examples to look through (such as that below) to standardize a national template structure.

Click on the photographs for a larger version...
Hand written specification from 1971
Think about the physical item, draw it, add the spec code, write the spec, work out the quantities - simple
CI/SfB codes - still used by many for work packages/drawing numbering to this day
Good old BS 1186
As everyone knows, BS 1186 was updated in 1971 and then again in 1990
It's 1971 and we need to invent a product that will bridge the communication gap between designer and contractor
Who needs Revit/ArchiCAD to generate schedules - it was so much more fun in 1971!
...and along came NBS in 1973.

Anyone else with nostaligic items from the past - feel free to send photographs through :)

Monday 2 September 2019

Twenty years

In the first week of September in 1999 I took my first job after leaving university to work on software products. These software products were for a company called NBS. We were taking paper based workflows and digitising them.

Twenty years later - I am still very much working on defining the next generation of software products for NBS.

Back in 1999 it was a small research centre (Construction Informatics Research Centre) that was connected to Newcastle University. In September 2002 this research centre moved into the NBS business to become the R+D department.
The old CIRC building on Claremont Road
Of the team that moved down, Andrew B, Emma H, John M, Mark W and myself are all still with NBS. AT NBS, we also still work with Richard Watson and Kay Rogage (Northumbria University) and Steve Lockley (co-founder of BIM Academy) on projects and they are very much part of the North East BIM Community.
The newly formed NBS R+D team
Richard Waterhouse who led the digital developments for NBS back in 1999 and who brought us down in 2002 is now CEO of NBS and my boss. Helen Whitfield was part of the finance team back in 1999 and is now an Exec Director at NBS. It's been fantastic to have some great continuity over the years,

Since 1999 I have worked on pretty much all of the NBS software products - from NBS Specification Manager to NBS Plus to NBS Create to NBS National BIM Library to NBS Chorus. But the first development I worked on was called NBS Office - it never got fully released, but a part of that project was NBS Scheduler which did - and I've dug out some screenshots from an early beta release I worked on the code on.

The branding changed slightly prior to the first release - so these screenshots from the 2000 beta have never been seen before :)
NBS Office - for all of the needs of an architectural office
A new innovative method of browsing specification content from standard drawings



Using new web technologies to offer users drop down suggested values when specifying
As a twenty something starting off as a software developer it was a great time with new technologies coming out each year and the internet really starting to take off. I'd say the first ten years were about changing our information delivery products to be web based, the second ten years have been about integrating work flows and then moving information production products to be web based and collaboration. Let's see what the next twenty years bring.

Some highlights of the twenty years have included:


...and a web cam picture from 1999 of three of the developers who worked on the code
(and had the occassional game of 5aside/ beer/ night out)
The team back in 2004 working on Building, Scheduler and NBS Plus
So - that is 1999-2019 in a blink of an eye. Let's hope there are many more interesting products to work on over the upcoming years!