Building Features

The OS National Geographic Database (NGD) Building Features Collection gives you access to the most current and comprehensive buildings data captured by Ordnance Survey as a standalone collection.

Example image showing what the feature types in the Building Features Collection look like in the data. A background map has been included to provide context.

Collection applications

The OS NGD Building Features Collection allows you to:

• Ensure your buildings data is always completely up to date with up to daily updates.

• Perform powerful analytics, underpinned by unrivalled OS accuracy.

• Use enhanced change metadata to monitor and understand how the building landscape is changing.

• Determine whether buildings are residential or commercial by using the Building Use, Buildings Description or Address Count attributes. Alternatively, use the cross references to NGD Address or NGD Land Use feature types.

The OS NGD Building Feature Type allows you to:

• Perform easy selection and analysis of individual buildings using new building footprint geometry.

• Quickly understand the Building Use (e.g. Commercial Retail) and Building Connectivity (e.g. standalone). Examples of how these attributes can be visualised are shown in the images below:

  

  Example that shows the Building Use attribute of the Building Feature Type. A background map is included for context.

  

  Example that shows the Connectivity attribute of the Building Feature Type. A background map is included for context.
• Perform easy data linkage both within and outside (to other OS NGD collections) the building collection using the provisioned cross reference tables.

• Quickly identify and select buildings of interest using integrated Address Count information.

• Determine the age of a building using the Building Age Period or Building Age Year attributes to determine the condition and potential maintenance costs. Identify the source of this information using the Building Age Third Party Provenance attribute.

• Identify the primary construction material for a building to develop an understanding of the buildings energy performance. Identify the source of this information using the Construction Material Third Party Provenance attribute.

• Check whether a building has a basement or basement flat to inform building safety standards plans or emergency response plans. Improve insurance underwriting and detect insurance fraud. Identify the source of this information using the Basement Presence Third Party Provenance attribute.

• Quickly identify and select buildings of interest using the Building Description attribute. Examples of how these attributes can be visualised are shown in the images below:

  

  Example that shows the Building Age Period attribute of the Building Feature Type. A background map is included for context.

  

  Example that shows the Construction Material attribute of the Building Feature Type. A background map is included for context.

  

  Example that shows the Basement Presence attribute of the Building Feature Type. A background map is included for context.

  

  Example that shows the Building Description attribute of the Building Feature Type. A background map is included for context.

The OS NGD Building Part Feature Type allows you to:

• Quickly interpret building type (such as clock tower, multi-storey car park or archway) using the Description attribute value.

• Create simple height models of buildings by using the embedded height attribution.

Key elements

• Up to daily updates to data.

• Plug and play – the data is simple and quick to implement as you don't need to pre-process it before you use it.

• Rich attribution ensures the data is straightforward to navigate and query for items of interest e.g. using Building Use or Building Connectivity attribution,

• Simplified attribute naming helps make names easier to understand.

• Persistent unique identifiers with lifecycle information.

• Height data included.

• Land use classification (for example, residential accommodation) provided for Building Part Feature Type to indicate the prominent use of the site which contains the building.

Coverage

Great Britain.

Default coordinate reference system

British National Grid (EPSG: 27700).

Temporal filtering

The earliest date on which you can request a one-off snapshot of a date in the past for data in this collection is noted at the top of the individual feature type pages.

Supply formats

GeoPackage, CSV (comma-separated values), GeoJSON or vector tiles (the latter format is only available for one feature type in the collection: Building Part).

Supply mechanism

Accessed through the OS Data Hub via:

• OS Select+Build

• OS NGD API – Features

• OS NGD API – Tiles (only available for one feature type in the collection: Building Part)

Using our data

• Included in the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) – therefore, it's free at point of use for Public Sector organisations.

• Available to OS Partners for commercial resell in your solutions.