New BIM Standards Released by NIBS

James Cohen of Arup, has brought to our attention that the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) has just released its National BIM Standard-United States™ (NBIMS-US™) Version 2 (V2).  This is a consensus based standard that covers the full life cycle of buildings—from planning, design, construction to operation.  It will govern building information modeling (BIM) for use in the United States, but it is also part of an international effort and will become the basis of new unified BIM standards to be adopted by a number of other countries around the world.  The United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Korea, Australia and New Zealand are all planning to take the NBIMS-US™ V2 as the basis for their own standards. Each nation will add more content as needed and then share their updates back with the United States.  There are plans to translate the standard into French and to convert the U.S. measurements into metric and to add a template for contract language.

NIBS was authorized by the U.S. Congress in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, Public Law 93-383.  The goal was to create an organization that could serve as an interface between government and the private sector. The Institute's public interest mission is to support advances in building science and technology in order to improve the built environment.  The Institute is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and is directed by a 21-member Board of Directors, 15 of whom are elected and six of whom are appointed by the President of the United States subject to the approval of the U.S. Senate. The Institute operates a number of councils which advise key aspects of many of the Institute's technical programs.