OS NGD Buildings

Introduction to the theme

The OS NGD Buildings Theme contains building features which meet the definition of a permanent roofed construction, usually with walls. Embedded height attribution is available for Building and Building Part features, enabling users to create simple height models.

OS NGD Buildings data is the most comprehensive and high-quality set of buildings data available for Great Britain ever produced by OS.

In comparison to OS MasterMap Download products, OS NGD buildings data has been enriched with additional attribution, including the following:

• Geometry change metadata

• A Description attribute to provide a one-word or simple phrase description of a feature

• Detailed land use classification

• Detailed land cover classification

• Capture specification to give details about the geography of the area a feature resides in (that is, urban, rural, or moorland)

• Roof shape, aspect and material

• Solar panel and green roof presence

• Number of floors within a building

• Building age

• Basement presence

• Building construction material

Data structure

The OS NGD Buildings Theme is made up of the OS NGD Building Features Collection, which in turn is comprised of Building, Building Access Location, Building Line and Building Part Feature Types.

OS NGD Buildings Theme data structure diagram showing the theme name, collection name and feature type names.

Unique identifiers

One main unique identifier is provided with each feature within the OS NGD Buildings Theme:

• OSID (Ordnance Survey Identifier): The primary identifier and unique key for this theme.

A TOID (Topographic Identifier) is an additional secondary identifier which can aid further data linking. TOIDs are an optional attribute and therefore will not always be provided with every feature. TOIDS are usually provided for Building Line and Building Part features; they are not provided for Building or Building Access Location features.

Useful links

• Introductory guides to OS NGD Buildings feature types are available on our More than Maps site; these guides detail the layers, formats, and attribution available for the OS NGD Buildings feature types.
• Identifying hard to heat homes case study: Explore how using attributes from OS NGD Buildings Theme data can help to identify homes which are hard to heat.
• Analysing roof attribution data: Discover how enhanced roof attribution data can benefit a wide range of sectors, including sustainability and energy, insurance and property, and Emergency Services.
• Find out how new data on pedestrian and vehicular access points to key public buildings will help the Emergency Services to enhance their emergency planning and response times and improve their situational awareness.