Performance-based building design

Performance-Based Building Design is an approach to the design of any complexity of building, from single-detached homes up to and including high-rise apartments and office buildings. A building constructed in this way is required to meet certain measurable or predictable performance requirements, such as energy efficiency or seismic load, without a specific prescribed method by which to attain those requirements. This is in contrast to traditional prescribed building codes, which mandate specific construction practises, such as stud size and distance between studs in wooden frame construction. Such an approach provides the freedom to develop tools and methods to evaluate the entire life cycle of the building process, from the business dealings, to procurement, through construction and the evaluation of results.

One of the first implementations of performance-based building design requirements was in Hammurabi's Code (c. 1795 to 1750 BC), where is stated that “a house should not collapse and kill anybody”. This concept is also described in Vitruvius’s “De architectura libri decem” (“The Ten Books of Architecture”) in first century BC.In modern times, the first definition of performance-based building design was introduced in 1965 in France by Blachère with the Agrément system

Despite this, the building process remained relatively conventional for the next 50 years, based solely on experience and codes, regulations prescribed by law which stifled innovations and change. The prescription approach is a technical procedure based on past experience which consists of comparing the proposed design with standardized codes, so no simulation or verification tools are needed for the design and building process.

A new approach began to emerge during the second half of the 20th century, when many local building markets began to show that they needed greater flexibility in the procurement procedures to facilitate the exchange of building goods between countries and to improve the speed of procedures and innovations in the building process. This innovative approach to the procurement, design, contracting, management and maintenance of buildings was performance-based building (PBBD).

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