The GSA Public Buildings Service has changed its standards for construction and major repair or alterations to give a little more flexibility to designers and engineers.
The Office of Design and Construction issued a new “performance based” version of its P100 (facilities standards) that defines the required outcome and leaves it to professional partners to determine the best way to achieve it.
The old P100, for example, required variable valve technology in all federal buildings, but now the updated version simply specifies the target performance an HVAC system must meet, according to a post on the GSA blog. It noted that the new standard includes performance tiers now as well: a mandatory minimum tier (or “baseline”) and three tiers that correspond to increasingly higher levels of performance.
