NBS (National Building Specification) is a UK-based business providing

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form Physical object, objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Pr ...

specification information used by

architects An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

engineers Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the ...

and other building professionals to describe the materials, standards and workmanship of a construction project. It was launched in 1973 and its information is now used by over 5000 offices. A

specification A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificati ...

often forms part of the tender documentation along with architectural drawings for a contractor to price and then forms part of the contract documentation for the builder to construct the building. Since 1988 the NBS data has been structured on the Common Arrangement of Work Sections. Until 2018, NBS was owned by the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

(RIBA) via its RIBA Enterprises subsidiary. In June 2018, the RIBA announced it was selling a £31.8 million stake in RIBA Enterprises, to LDC, the private equity arm of

Lloyds Bank Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the " Big Four" clearing banks. Lloyds Bank is the largest retail bank in Britain, and has an exte ...

. In November 2020, NBS was sold to Byggfakta Group, a Sweden-based information services provider. In early 2021 the RIBA received £113 million from the sale of its stake in NBS.

Products

NBS maintains and updates Uniclass 2015, a unified classification system for all sectors of the UK construction industry originally released in 1997. In 2012, NBS launched the National BIM Library, featuring a range of generic and proprietary construction elements suitable for building information modeling. In 2019 NBS released NBS Chorus, a fully online specification platform for construction. In 2020 NBS released NBS Source, a new online tool, incorporating the National BIM Library, that created a single source for product information.

References

External links

*
The National BIM Library
*https://www.thenbs.com/nbs-source *https://www.thenbs.com/nbs-chorus Construction standards Royal Institute of British Architects 1973 introductions Standards of the United Kingdom {{Architecture-stub