QUICK LINKS Who uses it? When is it used? What types of facilities can it be used for? What kind of information does it include? How is the information organized? How is it used?

Approximately 150 sections (individual documents) with a Uniformat-style organization are used to specify the design criteria for buildings of many types. These specs are often referred to as "whole-building" performance specs because they describe the performance of built elements (including the building as a whole) rather than the performance of individual materials or equipment.

These Performance Specifications are used by architects, owners, and design-builders to:

• Establish design criteria before the design is begun.
• Facilitate early decision-making; obtain consensus or agreement.
• Communicate material and equipment decisions before beginning construction documents.
• Avoid prematurely detailed drawings.
• Transmit information to other members of the team -- owners, design-builders, estimators, construction managers, lenders, etc.
• Prepare RFPs and proposals for design-build projects.
• Document design criteria in writing for later commissioning activities.

The Performance Specifications are designed for early-design documents rather than for construction documents. As such, they:

• Define the performance of the entire building and parts of the building without assuming any specific design solution.
• Assume the existence of a space program but no drawings beyond schematic sketches.
• Include optional "Use/Do Not Use" lists for all significant construction elements (e.g. roofing, HVAC systems, etc.).
• Are linked to short form prescriptive specs (on SpecLink's Short Form tab) to define quality in the event specific products are used in the design (e.g. brick, pipe, etc.).
• Organize the performance specs according to UniFormat (the prescriptive specs are organized according to CSI's 1995 edition of Masterformat™).
• Include interim substantiation requirements for all significant elements (i.e. activities, documentation, and submittals used to predict or prove success) and assume that ultimately the completed project is the final proof!

What the master database of performance criteria covers

PerSpective makes it easy to specify "whole-building" functional performance, using the best available voluntary performance standards and references to all major US building codes and provides alternative methods of non-restrictive specifying where performance standards are not available. A global "switch" changes language depending on the speaker -- Owner, Design-Builder, or Design-Builder to Constructor. The master guide text thoroughly addresses commercial and multi-family projects and it can be adapted for most other types of buildings. Projects will require a separately prepared space program defining dimensional requirements, space utilization criteria, project mission and goals, aesthetic needs, environment, and similar criteria. Some types of criteria it includes are:

• Building fabric, weather resistance, physical security, longevity.
• Interior construction, space efficiency, acoustics, and indoor air quality.
• Common equipment and fittings found in many occupancies.
• Energy efficiency, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and telecommunications.
• Environmentally responsible design, including LEED certification.
• Landscaping, paving, fencing, and other site construction.
• ICC International Codes as Owner's design criteria.
• Many more aspects of common building types.

Because the performance criteria do not specify particular products, PerSpective can be used anywhere in the world that the criteria are understood. The standards referenced to establish criteria are primarily U.S. standards, like ASTM, ANSI, ASHRAE, ASME, NFPA, and IEEE.

PerSpective can also be used in any building code jurisdiction. Reference to a code is required, to establish fundamental criteria. The user has the option of entering a specific code or selecting from the list of codes available. If no code is required by law, the user can select the ICC International Codes as base criteria, along with the NFPA National Electrical Code.

For design-build projects, PerSpective includes provisions for conducting a "competitive" design-build request for proposal process and model contracting requirements -- the design-build equivalent of Division 0 and 1, with contractual considerations based on DBIA MOP principles, but allowing DBIA, AIA, EJCDC, AGC, or other external documents to be referenced.

The PerSpective hierarchical tree panel consists of five folders

• Introductory Information
• Request for Proposal Documents
• Contracting Documents
• Program Requirements
• Performance Requirements

Each folder contains master text describing that topic. Some text is automatically included when a particular topic is selected. Other text is optional and the user can add as much additional text as desired.

The Performance Requirements folder is divided into 7 Volumes, based on UniFormat:

• Substructure
• Shell
• Interiors
• Services
• Equipment and Furnishings
• Demolition
• Sitework

The volumes are further broken down into a hierarchy of Sections (such as Exterior Enclosure, Exterior Windows and Other Openings, and Operable Windows). Each sub-section is more detailed and is dependent on the sections higher up in the hierarchy. The user decides how detailed the performance criteria must be. See the Catalog Listing for a complete list of all sections, plus a synopsis of the scope of each section.

When material and equipment specifications must also be included, the Short Form specs can be used -- the Performance Requirements sections include links to turn on the applicable Short Form sections and text.

Types of facilities PerSpective is suited for

PerSpective contains performance requirements for buildings, interior fittings and services, demolition, and sitework related to buildings. The occupancies for which PerSpective contains the most complete requirements are:

• Office Buildings: Commercial, professional, governmental, institutional.
• Residential/Hospitality: Dormitories, barracks, hotels, motels, boarding houses, multi-family residential, nursing homes.
• No- and Low-Tech Commercial: Retail shops and stores, theaters and movie houses, barber/beauty shops, bars and restaurants, banks, dry-cleaning delivery stations, florists and plant nurseries, laundries (self-service), motor vehicle showrooms, print shops, low-hazard warehouses.
• Low-Tech Institutional: Schools and colleges, places of worship, police and fire stations, post offices, animal clinics, kennels, pounds, child and elder day care facilities, community centers, convention halls, exhibition spaces, galleries, museums, libraries, outpatient clinics.

Besides the occupancies listed above, the Performance Specifications can be used to effectively specify the performance of the basic fabric of virtually any type of building. Fittings, fixtures, equipment and services that would not normally be found in the occupancies listed above would have to be added by the user. For example, for industrial projects the process elements are not included, but the buildings involved can effectively be described using PerSpective. Some occupancies that fall in this category are:

• Single family residential.
• Health Care: Hospitals, mental hospitals, research laboratories.
• Detention: Prisons, jails.
• Stadia and other very large audience facilities.
• Recreational: Ice rinks, natatoria.
• Automotive service, car washes.
• Utility Facilities: Water and waste treatment, telecommunications, power generation, trash incinerators.
• Industrial and Factories: Warehouses housing high-hazard materials, clean rooms, film studios, food-processing facilities, paint shops, canneries, tanneries, fisheries, boat-building.
• Mortuary and funerary facilities.

The Performance Specifications are not particularly well suited for non-building types of projects, some of which include: Highways, bridges, and other transportation facilities; pipelines and transmission lines; flood control and marine facilities; very large tanks and towers; special industrial storage, such as silos.

A Space Program is generally needed to accompany performance requirements

PerSpective describes the built elements of a building - the walls, floors, plumbing, pavements, etc. - not the rooms those built elements form. A Space Program defines which rooms and spaces are required, how big they must be, and any specific requirements for the spaces like how many people will occupy them, what furnishings must be accommodated, electrical power requirements, telephone outlets, environmental controls, special finishes. PerSpective does include some requirements related to spaces, but those are stated like this: "...where a room is identified as such-and-such do this..."

In a way, the performance criteria can be likened to specifications and the Space Program to drawings. Another way to look at it is: The Space Program defines the quantity and the performance criteria define the quality. So a Space Program is a necessary companion to any document prepared using PerSpective. Space Programs can be developed using word processing or spreadsheets and are often arranged in a tabular fashion for ease of review. Some Space Programs include layouts of particular rooms or bubble diagrams showing the relationships between the spaces. Just as construction drawings are unique to a particular project, so is the Space Program.

Editing the specs

The performance specs are written with options to allow the same document to perform three different functions. That is, the software automatically changes the voice of the specs globally, to make the specs define either 1) Building Design Criteria for a proposed building, 2) Proposed Performance Specifications (proposed by a design-builder), or 3) Instructions for Construction (given by a design-builder to subcontractors). (Click on the thumbnail to see full screen.)

Using the software is easy and intuitive. Start with Section 111 -- Facility Performance, and select the major options to be included by clicking on the status box adjacent to each desired paragraph. (Click on the thumbnail to see full screen.)

Continue to select paragraphs and subparagraphs to be included, insert new text, and modify any text as necessary, using standard word processing conventions. The software automatically includes other paragraphs that are necessary, excludes contradictory text, and highlights options that may be relevant to your choices. Only the paragraphs you select are included in the printed document -- no master text is ever deleted.

In addition to the software features described for SpecLink, PerSpective has the following special productivity features:

• Global switch to set function of document (Owner's RFP, Design-Builder's Proposal, or Instructions for Construction).
• Automatic partial editing of the Short Form specifications by decisions related to the Products portion of each section.
• Hundreds of context-sensitive notes to the editor explaining the issues and available options.

Benefits of BSD PerSpective Performance Specifications for construction

Design professionals, facility owners, and design-builders are adopting PerSpective Performance Specifications as their automated "checklist" solution of choice for performance-based building design criteria. These Performance Specifications are designed for use early in the project, before any design has been accomplished.

Recently integrated with BSD SpecLink, both PerSpective and SpecLink users can now enjoy fully integrated specs from concept through construction. See how PerSpective relates to SpecLink (pdf).

Establish credible building performance levels:

• Performance specifications help satisfy owners' quality concerns without committing projects to particular material and system choices at the proposal stage.
• Get early agreement on design criteria by using PerSpective as an automated checklist of performance requirements.
• Accurately define the owner's expectations while providing design-builders and their architects and engineers the greatest possible flexibility to devise the most cost effective solutions to the owner's needs.
• Allow innovation without compromising the owner's performance and quality requirements, especially when on a tight budget.

For facility owners and design-build consultants, PerSpective helps:

• Define quality for important elements without limiting the design solution, prescribing details only when necessary.
• Obtain a fixed price on an enforceable scope.
• Avoid low-quality results without specifying too much detail.
• Compare multiple proposals easily.
• Forestall mistakes before they are built, using detailed substantiation submittals.

For design-builders, PerSpective helps:

• Preserve design flexibility by specifying required performance rather than specific products.
• Offer a more accurate fixed price very early in the design process.
• Avoid mission creep -- losing control of the budget -- without specifying too much detail.
• Minimize disputes by having contract scope in writing.
• Establish credible performance criteria by referencing accepted industry standards.
• Avoid committing to specific materials and systems while design is still in flux.

PerSpective assists design professionals who want to help an owner prepare a building program.

Using the "checklists," the architect can establish appropriate design criteria, satisfying the owner's quality concerns without prematurely limiting material and system options. In addition, PerSpective helps:

• Communicate design criteria before the design is begun.
• Record material and equipment decisions before beginning construction documents.
• Facilitate early decision-making; obtain consensus or agreement.
• Avoid prematurely detailed drawings.
• Transmit information to other members of the team -- owners, design-builders, estimators, construction managers, lenders, etc..
• Document design criteria in writing for later commissioning activities.

For more information on the functions of the software, see the Frequently Asked Questions and the information about SpecLink (the software is the same).

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Revised: March 20, 2008