John Gelder

Lecturer in Construction
University of South Australia

John Gelder is an architect and a lecturer in the construction management discipline at the University of South Australia. As an architect he worked in Adelaide, London and Sydney. He was chief editor at NATSPEC in the 1990s, in Sydney. He was Head of Content Development at NBS in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK from 2000 to 2014. While there he was the UK expert on the ISO working group responsible for ISO 12006-2:2015. For NBS he devised and developed the NBS Services specification system, and then the BIM classification system, Uniclass 2015, and the BIM specification system, NBS Create – the precursor to NBS Chorus. Both Uniclass 2015 and NBS Chorus are being used in Australia.

He has lectured widely on specification and classification, in Australia, the UK and elsewhere. John’s book on specification practice has had two editions, and he has authored multiple articles on specification and classification. He is researching a doctorate in construction documentation in the ancient world, the source of many other articles. A member of the AIA Environment Advisory Group, John helped with the launch of the RAIA Environment Design Guide in 1995 for which he has written many Notes over the years.