As part of the launch of our new brand and our new website - we now have a dedicated place on our website explaining how NBS products and services can support you within your BIM workflow.
As part of this, we have just produced a three minute video as a short introduction.
What I think is particularly nice about this video is that the story is told from our own building project that is currently under way. This is a genuine model of our building. The content and software examples are genuine. Some stills from the video are explained below.
At an early stage, client information requirements can be defined in the NBS BIM Toolkit
Assa Abloy presenting how they have worked with NBS to deliver against their BIM strategy
It's great to see screen grabs of our content and tools being used on BIM projects. If anyone out there wants to send any in for inclusion in a blog post please get in touch.
Each year you can easily spend £200-£400 going to BIM conferences around the country. Well, for the second year running NBS have curated the content at ecobuild for the BIM/Digital Building seminar series - and it's completely free to attend.
Arguably the biggest attraction at the Digital Building Stage each day will be the UK BIM Task Group giving an update on progress against the Government BIM Strategy. Hear from:
Rob Manning at 3.30pm on Tuesday 8th March; or
Dave Philp at 2.30pm on Wednesday 9th March; or
Rob Manning at 1.30pm on Thursday 10th March
Hear from Rob Manning and Dave Philp
In addition to the BIM Task Group update, there are also speakers from 10am-4pm each day from some of the leaders in BIM across the UK. Check out the full programme below...
Rather than have a lie in and get the speakers bus to the conference, on day two I got up early and had a little mini-tour of Barcelona taking in the stunning Sagrada Familia Cathederal as the sun came up. Then it was back on the metro so I could arrive with minutes to spare for the start of day two.
Slightly over budget and a tiny bit late - but it isn't looking too bad ;)
The second day opened with Riccardo Viaggi from the European Builders Confederation. Ricaardo looked at collaboration across Europe and in particular how it is important to give support to the SMEs. The stats below show that almost 99% of organisations have 50 or less employees, 92% have 10 or less.
Stats on European construction
The 'big BIM' case study on day two was the New International Airport for Mexico. The scale of this project is absolutely breathtaking. Check out the incredible roof designed by Foster + Partners below and watch the embedded video for more information...
Incredible roof design
Sponsor's Roca talked about their BIM journey and the importance for manufacturers to deliver BIM objects to specifiers. Miguel Angel Heras gave three tips for manufacturers:
Try and deliver content from a single source - however syndicate it on other websites to maximise exposure
Take responsibility for the information within the objects - this is your technical information and you have a responsibility to customers to get it right and maintain it
Interact with your customers - encourage communication and offer support on technical design decisions
A light-hearted look at how 'digital' is changing the bathroom sector.
I had my presentation on day two as well, I looked at the UK Government's level-2 BIM package of standards and tools and presented on how NBS has played a part in supporting the UK in this journey.
Feel sorry for the Geordie-to-Spanish translator having to communicate what this guy was saying!
What the clear objectives of the HM Government strategy are
The NBS definition bandings for level of detail and information
How the free-to-use NBS National BIM Library helps projects with concept, generic and manufacturer objects
Free-to-use and premium tools from NBS to support the UK in their BIM journey
For those wanting more information on the topics looked at in the presentation please see:
Finally, the twitter debate on the #BIMSummit16 hashtag was pretty lively. It was lovely to return to the seat after presenting and see some nice comments...
It is fantastic to see that there can be 400+ delegates now at a conference and then many more watching it on live streams and also interacting on twitter. I particularly liked the following tweet showing an architectural practice in Spain sitting around the live video stream watching the event...
Watching and interacting with the conference over the web
...and then it was back home to England on the early Friday evening plane...
The Columbus Monument
Sunrise at Sagrada Familia, Sunset on the airplane
Over 400 delegates were present today for the European BIM Summit 2016 at the World Trade Centre Barcelona.
European BIM Summit 2016 - World Trade Centre Barcelona
Autodesk were one of the main sponsors. Their primary 'thought leader' Dominic Thasarathar looked into the future and predicted where he thought technology would take the industry. The youtube clip below covers a lot of the same material - definitely worth a watch...
Miguelangel Gea from Total BIM Consulting was one of many international BIM case studies. The case study shown in the photo below was particularly interesting as it was the story of building an entire holiday complex on a Spanish island. A pretty exciting project by all accounts.
Miguelangel Gea builds an island resort using BIM - wouldn't mind a game of golf there.
The best session of the day for me was the hour with Souheil Soubra from France, Ilka May from Germany and Adam Matthews from the UK. It looked at what levels of Government support existed around Europe for BIM adoption. Adam is chair of the EU BIM Task Group, so it was fascinating to listen to the vision for that initiative. I also managed to persuade Adam to pen an article for the upcoming NBS BIM report - so keep an eye out for that.
Clear LOD guidance and a standardised object library - on the French roadmap
Nice comic strip from German speaker Ilka May
UK BIM Task Group in front of 440 delegates
A lot of waste in construction - this amounts to a huge amount of time and money
If strategies are not aligned across Europe we risk adding cost, not removing it
The EU BIM Task Group Vision
The main guest speaker of the day was the UK's Mark Bew. Mark has been the lead figure in the UK in terms of forming the BIM Task Group and rolling out the strategy. As always, it was fantastic to listen to Mark present and reflect on all of the hard work and great progress that has been made in the UK over recent years.
"To achieve these objectives we cannot just squeeze the current process, we need to change it"
Mark Bew presents UK Level-2 BIM
Rob Garvey was another presenter from the UK - Rob talked about the BIM4 groups and how the BIM Task Group's message is being pushed out by the wider community. But there were also many more BIM stories from around the world. A few photographs from the rest of the day below...
Rob tells Europe about our acronyms :;
Not only do they have Neymar, Suarez and Messi - but they also have a BIM of their stadium
Brian Skripac - tell receivers of the model what it can be relied on for - LODs not just blanket warnings
Brian Skripac presents an LOD matrix
Bilal Succar and Mohammad Kassem show a maturity model that allows different nation's abilities to be compared
I arrived in Barcelona today for the 2nd European Summit on Building Information Modelling. The actual conference starts tomorrow. But a few screengrabs and photos from the speakers dinner below...
