Jeremy Watson
Anne Kemp
BuildingSMART, the organisation setting a path towards “open” interoperable BIM and seamless data exchange, has undergone a change of personnel with Mark Bew exiting the BRE-managed organisation.
It is understood that Bew, who also heads the government’s BIM Task Group, decided to step down “due to other commitments”.
The new chair will be Professor Jeremy Watson CBE, who has two roles: as BRE’s chief scientist and engineer, and University College London’s vice dean of engineering systems.
There will also be a new vice-chair. Dr Anne Kemp, director of BIM at Atkins, replaces Professor Tim Broyd.
BRE’s Nick Tune, director of BuildingSMART UK, said: “We are now just over a year away from the government’s deadline on BIM Level 2 – the industry has made considerable progress but we have a way to go to meet the ‘go live’ target and we need to start progressing Level 3.
“Both Jeremy and Anne have the experience and energy to build on the great work done by Mark and Tim in this space – Jeremy recently led on the technical aspects of the government’s BIM Level 3 strategy and Anne leads on BIM for infrastructure and the alignment of BIM and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – we are very pleased to have them on board.”
BuildingSMART UK’s role is to make open BIM a reality for construction and related sectors, helping it achieve outcomes such as greener and more efficient projects.
It is part of the international BuildingSMART programme, which has chapters across Europe, North America, the Middle East, Far East and Australasia.
They are working to define and develop open standards such as Industry Foundation Classes and associated protocols to enable truly interoperable data exchange.
In the UK, BuildingSMART is also conducting trials on the use of BIM libraries, Employers Information Requirements (EIRs) and Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie).
