NBS Journal 2002 - Edition One

I'm a collector of NBS items from the past (see all posts tagged 'History') so when I found this NBS Journal Edition One from 2002 I thought I'd photograph a couple of the pages.

The first page is the introduction from John Gelder who was leading the NBS content's team work at the time around restructuring CAWS to Uniclass. Interesting looking back at the areas of content that John wanted to focus on in the Journal (in the days where a magazine style publication was preferred over web delivery).
(Click image for larger view)

The interview in the first NBS Journal was with Professor Steve Lockley, who was my boss at the time, on his views on where the NBS software would go in the future. How would we move on from SpecMan? How would the internet change things? Would construction information be 'modelled'?

NBS 1996

Richard W found this NBS Specification Manager manual from 1996 in the archives, thought I'd share it.

Click for larger images.

The manual

Hope you have Windows 3.1 and 40MB of disk space free?

The first office masters and permissions features

You don't have to 'hunt down' information that may or may not be in your library

Product Selector-plus - the first sign of integrating manufacturer content - Rockwool in screenshot

Snappy diagram

Information provided 'in full colour' ;)

...and a joint inititive with Autodesk AutoCAD AEC Release 5

Coordinated Project Information - 1987

Found this on youtube.

Promotional video from CPIC (Coordinate Project Information Committee) back in 1987.

The members of CPIC contributed towards publications such as BS 1192 and then the PAS 1192 series. They also published versions of Uniclass for many years.

This video below was put together by BRE, found by Keith Snook in the archives, and uploaded to the web by Stuart Chalmers...

A section worth watching is at 19:17 with the NBS binders visible on the table...

NBS Binders bottom right - huge set of paper drawings centre screen

Essential publications for every office library

Strike out the clauses not needed with a pen and complete the clauses relevant to the project 

From the archives - Press articles on NBS from 1974

I got a nice email from Levitt Bernstein's Andy Jobling yesterday, he'd found some of the very first reviews of NBS from the Architects' Journal from back in 1974. Since I started working on developing NBS in 1999 Andy has always been one of those that has been hugely supportive with ideas on our customer groups and also one-to-one sessions. So a big thanks to Andy for sending this through.

Click the scans below to see them at a larger size.

10th July 1974 - Architects' Journal

Some interesting points from the first article:

• An interesting debate over specification responsibility - architect or quantity surveyor?
• Drawings, specifications, bills and schedules were not coordinated adequately
• Controversary on classification :) - SMM or CI/SfB?
• Computers mentioned - but generally 'architect makes amends to clauses and hands it to a secretary to type the clause in full'
• Stressing that specification needs to be done by a professional - Modify NBS 'wisely rather than wilfully'.
• Mentions of names from the past - Tony Allott (Technical Director of NBS Ltd) and Stuart Hendy (FaulknerBrown Architects) - notably FaulknerBrown's are still NBS users nearly 50 years later!
• Early compters do not reduce the need for sound judgements - but do have the advantage of improving the speed and accuracy.
• Using NBS on computer for a large job was estimated to have cost £1,000 - but this included a cost of 40p a page to print out!!!
• Manufacturers should 'produce literature consistent with NBS'
• Using NBS 'makes the job architect think'
• 'It takes some initial courage and effort...but after that... its benefits are great' :)

31st July 1974 - Architects' Journal
And then a few weeks later.

• Reflecting on the initial need for NBS - 'In 1968 the Economic Development Council for Building concluded that the general standard of building specification needed improvement, and that wide use of a national library of specification clauses would increase productivity and facilitate communication between the professions, the contractors and other limbs of the industry.'
• This review is from two quantity surveyors from BDP. As with FaulknerBrown, BDP have been long-time NBS users.
• A set of exemplar documentation from real projects had been published and reviewed.
• A focus on drawing standards, referencing the RIBA Project Manual and the BRE paper 18/73.
• More confusion between classification systems SMM vs CI/SfB.
• 'Education an architect towards better specification writing is... fundamental'

A few other 'from the archive' blog posts below for those interested in this sort of thing...

• Behind the scenes sketches from 1971 when NBS was being developed
• The 1973 first edition NBS
• NBS 1990 SpecMan promo video

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 :)

The original NBS Specification Manager promotional video

Rewind back to Autumn 1990...

...the first bit of construction software written for the UK market on Microsoft Windows 3.0* was released. BDS Software part of Newcastle University and owned by Professor Steve Lockley wrote NBS Specification Manager for NBS Services... and that is the reason the NBS Research and Development team is here today. Some screenshots and a retro video below...

The famous Specification Manager juggler splash screen

A drawing board - not a computer in sight!

Who needs t'interweb when you can have thousands of books on book shelves across the office?

Good old "F30" used for years in NBS demo videos

Accompanied by a suitably futuristic purple light is... a computer!

Write your spec to the left - guidance and standards to the right - what's changed?

Manufacturer information from Celotex
(23 years later, still a valued customer of ours and now taking National BIM Library)

Export the data to COBie? I don't think so - printer paper with holes in will do

Watch the video below...

For more memories on our dedicated '40 years of NBS' page see:
- http://www.thenbs.com/NBS40/

Also, anyone want to guess the architectural practice? Add your comments below.

* Prof Lockley promises me that this was the case.

40 years of NBS

It's great to see our "40 years of NBS" website go live.

For the next few weeks nostalgic pictures from the last forty years will be posted to the website.

- http://www.thenbs.com/NBS40/

40 years of NBS website

There is also going to be a Twitter hash tag for users of NBS to post their memories to...

- #NBS40

This all got off to a great start last Friday when an NBS user from back in the 1970s came over to say hello at the BIM for small practices conference at the RIBA and gave me this picture...

The "Spec Man Dongle"

Then and now

In recent conversations with architects, a few people have fondly recalled the days of using "stencils" provided by bathroom manufacturers to do their drawings...

Using the latest technology to help generate drawings

Baths and toilets

Fast forward a few years...

Browse for sanitaryware - filter by Baths

Coordinated 3D geometry and specification

- http://www.nationalbimlibrary.com

Update 28th June 2013...

Response from Francesco

Response from Neil

Contract clauses in the olden days

Here is a genuine construction contract clause from the olden days.

From presentation given at the BIM Summit Qatar that I attended.

I'd say there is quite a strong incentive to over-engineer the design to ensure that the risk documented below is fully managed!

One way of ensuring design quality

The End Of Babel - IFC promotional video

I managed to get a copy of the first ever IFC promotional video "The End of Babel" from 1994 *. Fascinating to watch it nearly twenty years on. The Tower of Babel biblical story states that the building failed as those working on it could no longer communicate properly. This theme is developed into the need for a single object orientated database language in the AEC industry...

Part 1 of 2 - the first ten minutes

Part 2 of 2 the last seven minutes

Some selected quotes...

"The Tower of Babel, one of the biggest construction projects undertaken. Designed to reach the heavens. But the engineers couldn't finish the job. Halfway through everybody working on the job was stricken with inability to understand what the other fella was saying. They were all still talking...

...but they weren't communicating.
That incident was supposed to have taken place in around 5,000 BC. And we've been trying to understand each other ever since."

Patrick MacLeamey
HOK

"The important thing about the alliance [AT&T, HOK, Honeywell, Carrier, Tishman and others] is that it represents a cross section of companies that deal across the cycle of the building industry. People who design. People who engineer buildings. People who build, manage, maintain and then recycle buildings...

...in order for this to be successful, we all have to be participants.

If you really think about buildings, and things in buildings, furniture, equipment and so forth. You are really talking about objects not lines on paper."

Jeol Koppelman
Primavera Systems

"For our customers, interoperability means that they'll be able to take information and expand and enlarge on that information as the process moves forward. So as information is derived from design that moves into detailed design then that information can be moved forward... as changes are made along the way then those changes can be incorporated, quantified, schedules adjusted and everybody informed as to what is going on."


Further reading:
- buildingSMART website - http://www.buildingsmart.com/
- IFC Wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Foundation_Classes

* Thanks to Keith Snook from BRE who made me aware of this video. I was really impressed with the activities that BRE are working on and at NBS we hope to continue to work closely with them.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year

To those that have visited the blog this year - many thanks for your support. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all. A summary of what's gone on on the blog through 2010 is below.

Launching in January 2010 the blog has seen an increased number of visitors throughout the year. Key stats are over 2,000 unique visitors, 80 posts and ending the year on over 600 visitors per month.

The most popular posts were:

1. Building Information Modelling (BIM) - 431 visitors
   An introduction to what BIM is and what benefits adopters are seeing.
2. Using NBS with AutoCAD, Revit or Microstation - 409 visitors
   A walkthrough of how to export NBS project specification information to keynote format.
3. Annotating ArchiCAD models from NBS - 290 visitors
   A tutorial video showing the NBS Link plug-in to ArchiCAD.
4. NBS Domestic Specification - coming soon as an online product - 210 visitors
   The teaser post promoting the new specification product from NBS.
5. Exporting NBS annotations to Vectorworks NotesManager format - 191 visitors
   A walkthrough of how to export NBS project spec info for use with Vectorworks.

The most common keywords that Google visitors found the site from most were:

1. nbs archicad - 43 visitors
2. nbs on the road - 22 visitors
3. using both scheduler and building - 19 visitors
4. bim conference - 18 visitors
5. nbs software blog - 15 visitors

See you all next year in 2011. There'll be some nice new improvements to the NBS specification products to be blogged about. Please keep your comments coming to. Always great to read them.

New NBS work section I think for 2011-1 update - B19 Site made frozen water constructions

From the Archives - Annotation Manager 1996

With the recent release of the Annotator as part of the NBS Tools it is worth looking back a few years in time.

In 1996, Annotaion Manager from NBS was a plug in for AutoCAD AEC5. NBS provided this and released a library of annotations to accompany each library update of the NBS work sections.

A few screenshots below show this in further detail...

Fig 01 - Spec Man 3

Fig 02 - Picking an annotation from the NBS library

Fig 03 - AutoCAD

Fig 04 - Viewing the guidance and linking to CIS

To go further back in time to 1973 see my earlier blog post. Check out the diagram showing the specification, the drawings and the bill of quants.