John is an architect. He was chief editor at NATSPEC for 5 years in the 1990s. Subsequently, while working for NBS in the UK, he initiated the development of, and designed the data structures for, NBS Services (the precursor to NBS Create), NBS Create (the precursor to NBS Chorus) and Uniclass 2015. He was also on the Working Group for ISO 12006-2:2015. He is now a lecturer at the University of South Australia. While there, he co-authored/authored reports recommending the adoption of Uniclass 2015 to both TfNSW and Austroads and remains in touch with NBS on the development of Uniclass 2015.
Classification is needed in the construction industry. It was needed in a pre-BIM environment (an early example being the Swedish Samarbetskomittén för Byggnadsfrågor, SfB, which was launched in 1950), and it is needed even more in a BIM environment where the benefits of digital interoperability are likely to be huge.
Most countries have some ambition when it comes to setting an exemplar approach for the development of sustainable buildings. John Gelder asesses Australia's approach.
We explore a definition of renewable materials and consider some common characteristics – carbon sinks, flammability and biodegradability.
At Ecobuild 2013 John Gelder of RIBA Enterprises hosted a conversation with Sofie Pelsmakers of UCL and Architecture for Change, and Martin Townsend of BRE.
John Gelder, Head of content development and sustainability, contributed a chapter on BIM and FM to the new guide, BIM for the terrified. This article is an extended version of that chapter.
We investigate offsite and onsite inspection and test regimes with practical examples.
We explore substitution, the use of 'or equal' and its ilk, and 'deemed-to-comply' specifications, and make a few suggestions.
Though most fabric and services systems and products can be used in facilities of all types, some are specific to a particular facility. So where does a specifier go for neutral authoritative technical information on systems and products pertaining to sports facilities?
John Gelder explores the contents of some early English-language works on specifying, published between 1840 and 1940.
Following our article on specification, or lack of it, at Ian McGlinn's Maison d'Or 'Yes! We have no specifications', John Gelder looks at what the case tells us about inspection.
Like Nero's Domus Aurea, little remains of Ian McGlinn's Maison d'Or – though a legal (rather than archaeological) legacy lives on. John Gelder looks at what this legacy tells us about specification.
We have recently had a couple of queries about materials blacklists, which we had thought were a thing of the past. Clearly this is not the case, so John Gelder revisits the issue.
