Design Guidelines

A high performance commercial building design strategy requires a clear definition of goals and performance benchmarks from the owner and an inter-disciplinary design and construction approach. Design criteria should be based on environmental and energy cost/benefit analyses and attention to "whole-building" and system performance.

• Process Overview Design
• Process Overview Construction
• Design Team Evaluation Questionnaire

Organizations are customizing design guidelines specific to their climate and building types:

Some of the following documents are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs. Download Acrobat Reader.

• Los Alamos National Laboratory Sustainable Design Guide
  
  
• Energy Design Guidelines for High Performance Schools:
  • Arctic and Subarctic Climates. 2004 (PDF 5.1 MB)
  • Tropical Island Climates. 2004 (PDF 5.1 MB)
  • Cool and Humid Climates (PDF 3.4 MB)
  • Hot and Dry Climates. (PDF 1.9 MB)
  • Temperate and Mixed Climates. (PDF 3.2 MB)
  • Cold and Humid Climates. (PDF 3.2 MB) (different from cool and humid)
  • Temperate and Humid Climates. (PDF 3.3 MB)
  • Hot and Humid Climates. (PDF 3.2 MB)
  • Cool and Dry Climates. (PDF 3.2 MB)