Building manual

The RIBA Plan of Work 2020, suggests that a building manual is: ‘A summary of all key information about a building, including the Health and Safety File and Fire Safety Information, which are regulatory requirements. The Building Manual is used to ensure that Asset Management and Facilities Management are effectively implemented and might contain tasks that the users must consider in order to get the most out of the building.’

The RIBA Plan of Work 2020 suggests that building manuals (which may have been referred to as building owner's manuals, or operation and maintenance manuals) were traditionally been prepared to satisfy statutory requirements and were large, unwieldy and often poorly structured volumes that were difficult to for the client to use.

The Inclusive Design Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work published by the RIBA in 2023, states: ‘The Building Manual helps to ensure that operations and maintenance activities are effectively implemented. It includes a summary of all key information about a building, including the Health and Safety File and Fire Safety Information, which are regulatory requirements and might contain tasks that the users must consider to get the most out of the building.’

Security Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work, published by the RIBA in 2023, states: ‘The Building Manual should contain details of how measures included in the Security Strategy are incorporated into the Building Systems and how these will be operated at RIBA Stage 7, which might be outlined in the Security Plan. The Security Strategy might be included as an appendix to the Building Manual to provide useful decision-making information to users.’

Digital building manuals can provide structured links to information about the products and systems used in a development and information about maintenance, replacements and so on.

Ideally, the client should define what they want to be in the building manual other than statutory requirements.

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• Building log book.
• Building owner's manual - O and M manual.
• Building user's guide.
• Fire safety information.
• Handover to client.
• Health and safety file.
• Practical completion.
• Preliminaries.
• Property logbook.
• RIBA Plan of Work 2020.
• RIBA.
• Technical guide.