Regionalization

Written by R. Kirk Johnson, AIA, LEED AP

This is the third article delineating emerging sustainable regulations as defined in the fourth edition public draft of the Standard 189.1P Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings.  The first two articles, illustrated in previous U.S. Green Building Council North Texas Chapter digital magazine editions, described elements from energy and sustainable sites. This brief overview article concentrates upon information as it relates to the materials, resources, and indoor environment air quality portions of the regulation.

The standard is a joint partnership between the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) with an anticipated publish date of January 2010.  The standard is designed to significantly move forward sustainable concepts and construction.

In a conceptual sense, the regulation upon adoption contains many code enforceable LEED related items.  The standard is anticipated to be a primary driver in the development of the International Code Council (ICC) upcoming International Green Building Code (IGBC).

As with the U.S. Green Building Council LEED Rating System, the Standard 189 regulation is organized around general sustainable category topics.  Within each chapter, five residual categories such as general requirements, compliance paths, mandatory provisions, prescriptive options, and performance options.  

MANDATORY OPTIONS

Mandatory compliance delineations for building environmental concerns within the standard cover the following.

• Indoor Environmental Quality
• Building Impact on Atmosphere, materials, and resources
• Construction and Plans for Operation

INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

This section of the standard provides requirements for indoor air quality, acoustic control, thermal comfort, building entrances, daylighting, ventilation, low emitting materials, and other similar interior environmental quality concerns.  Indoor environmental quality issues, as addressed in the standard, must meet all mandatory requirements along with an option to provide compliance to either a prescriptive or performative option.

INDOOR AIR QUALITY (8.3.1)

Mandatory requirements for indoor air quality require that development occur address the following alternatives.

• Minimum Ventilation Rates
• Outdoor Air Delivery Monitoring
• Filtration and Air Cleaner Requirements
• Environmental Tobacco Smoke Elimination
• Building Entrance Particulate Removal

In the standard, the minimum ventilation rates described in ASHRAE Standard 62.1 shall govern the design of all mechanical ventilation systems within buildings and solutions shall address both zone level and system level outside airflow rates.

Permanently mounted, outdoor airflow measurement devices are required to ensure compliance with the minimum system level outdoor airflow rate.  These precision devices are required to notify building operators or a central monitoring system when the flow rates are incompliant.

Particulate matter filtration devices are required a minimum MERV value of 8 and populated according to the ASHRAE 62.1 ventilation standard.  Buildings located in federally designated non-attainment areas, as determined by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards definitions, shall also meet additional air cleaning and ozone requirements.

As with the LEED Rating System and many local North Texas jurisdictional policies, tobacco smoking is prohibited within buildings.  This standard regulates the signage and location of outdoor smoking areas according to LEED standards.

Building entrances and vestibules, under Standard 189, require absorptive, abrasive, and finishing requirements for particulate removal prior to entrance to the primary usage of the facility.

THERMAL ENVIRONMENT (8.3.2)
All buildings under Standard 189 control must be designed in compliance with ASHRAE Standard 55.  All spaces within buildings, with the exception of special requirement spaces such as natatoriums, food storage, and other similar areas, shall be required to meet the ASHRAE 55 standard.

ACOUSIC CONTROL (8.3.3)
Standard 189 stipulates minimum acoustic performance for exterior wall and roof assemblies and various interior spaces.  Exterior wall assemblies must meet a minimum STC 50 rating.  Fenestration, located in buildings proximinate to major arterial expressways, within five miles of major airports, or in high sound level areas shall meet a minimum STC 30 rating.  The fenestration acoustic requirement will particularly impact buildings within 5 miles of the DFW and Love Field airports.

Dependent upon the typology of space, interior wall, floor, and ceiling assemblies require various acoustic control ratings.  Assemblies between dwelling units must meet a minimum STC 50 rating.  Hotel, motel, and patient rooms must meet a minimum STC 45 rating.  Classrooms adjacent to rest rooms or showers must meet a minimum STC 53 rating.  Classrooms adjacent to music rooms, mechanical rooms, cafeterias, gymnasiums, and indoor swimming pools shall meet a minimum STC rating of 60.  These definitions not only provide guidelines for adherence but also provide best practice guidance for spaces that are not regulated by the standard.

DAYLIGHT BY TOPLIGHTING (8.3.4)
Under the proposed standard, large enclosed spaces are required to provide daylighting into the spaces by means of toplighting above.  Exceptions are provided for auditoria, theaters, places of worship, refrigerated warehouses, and buildings in climate zones 7 & 8.

POLLUTANT ISOLATION (8.3.5)
Buildings located in brownfield sites or zone 1 counties identified with high levels of radon concentrations require the installation of a soil gas retarder system between the soil and new construction space.

ATMOSPHERE, MATERIALS, RESOURCES

Another element of the proposed standard governs the impact of building construction to the global atmosphere, available materials, and natural resources.  Regulations are included in this section governing construction waste management, storage and collection of recyclables, and reduced material environmental impacts.  As with all other sections, mandatory requirements are required and discussed below.

CONSTRUCTION WASTE MANAGEMENT (9.3.1)
Construction and demolition waste material diversion policies are stipulated in the proposed Standard 189 regulation.  Under the standard, a minimum of 50% of non-hazardous construction and demolition materials are required to be diverted from landfill disposal or incineration by either recycling or re-use of the materials.  Similar to the requirements of the LEED Rating System, calculations may be either by weight or volume.  However, they must be consistent in the system of measurement utilized throughout the calculations.

MATERIAL + HARVESTING (9.3.2)
Materials used in the project must be extracted, harvested, assembled, and manufactured according to the laws of the country of origin.  Wood products from endangered wood species are disallowed in the regulation.

REFRIGERANTS (9.3.3)
CFC-based refrigerants in mechanical systems shall not be used in projects and fire suppression systems shall not contain ozone depleting substitances such as CFC, HCFC, or halons.

RECYCLABLES + DISCARDED GOODS (9.3.4)
All buildings shall provide an area dedicated to the collection and storage of recycled non-hazardous materials that is sized to serve the entire facility.  For building projects containing residential spaces, an area serving the building shall be provided for the collection of discarded but items in good condition that may be reusable.  A third area shall be provided in buildings that is designed to accommodate the collection of fluorescent, HID lamps, and ballasts facilitating proper disposal of these hazardous materials.

CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION PLANS

Within the proposed Standard 189 publication are mandatory requirements governing system testing procedures, building commissioning practices, erosion control, indoor air quality management, moisture control, construction pollution prevention, and minimum compliance plans for building operation.

PLANS FOR CONSTRUCTION (10.3.1)
Building acceptance testing is required for buildings under the standard with requirements for activities prior to the obtainment of building permit and also prior to building occupancy.  At a minimum, the following items are required for testing.

• Mechanical systems including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, IAQ, refrigerate systems, and associated controls.
• Lighting systems including daylighting controls, occupancy sensing devices, and automatic shut-off controls.
• Renewable energy systems
• Energy management devices
• Water measurement devices

 

Commissioning is also required for all buildings governed by the proposed standard 189 regulation.  Similar to the previous building acceptance testing requirements, stipulations are required for activities prior to building permit and operations.  However, additional requirements are stated for post-occupancy activities as well.  All of these activities must correspond to an associated commissioning plan.  The following systems are required for commissioning under the protocol.

• Mechanical systems
• IAQ and refrigerant systems
• Building envelope systems
• Building envelope pressurization
• Lighting and shading controls
• Irrigation
• Plumbing
• Water pumping systems
• Renewable energy systems
• Energy measurement devices
• Water measurement devices

As required by the State of Texas, erosion and sediment control plans are required for all construction activities.

An indoor air quality (IAQ) construction management plan is required under the regulation governing activities during the construction of the facility, a flush out period prior to the occupancy of the facility, and pollutant removal after building occupancy.

Additional measures are required that limit construction vehicle pollution emission and that govern staging areas for vehicles waiting to unload or load materials.

PLANS FOR OPERATION (10.3.2)
Unique to the standard 189 protocol are requirements for the development and implementation of a high performance building operation plan governing the measurement, maintenance, and verification of site, water, ventilation, and energy usage.  Specifically, the high performance building operation plan includes requirements for the following items.

• Vegetation maintenance plan
• Water use measurement devices
• Water use verification
• Energy measurement devices
• Energy verification devices
• Energy usage reports
• Energy Star Portfolio Manger energy consumption data reporting and input.
• Indoor air quality measurement
• Outdoor airflow measurement
• Outdoor airflow verification
• Outdoor airflow scheduling
• Green cleaning operations
• Building System Maintenance Plan
• Transportation Management Plan

Also unique to the standard is the addition of requirements governing the design service life for buildings.  Under this standard, buildings are classified into three primary age descriptions regarding the minimum anticipated service life.  Buildings must be design to a prescriptive design service life and a plan must be developed in order to estimate replacement and repairment of various building components.  The minimum service life for buildings is described in the following table.

Temporary (Up to 10 years)

• Non-permanent construction buildings such as sales offices or bunkhouses
• Temporary exhibition buildings

Medium (25 years)

• Industrial buildings
• Stand alone parking structures

Long life (50 years)

• All buildings not temporary or medium life, including the parking structures below buildings designed for long life category.

The addition of adherence regulations for an anticipated building service life is intended to encourage more life cycle analysis and long term decisions.  However, this is a significant expansion of current regulations and warrants considerable consideration during the design, construction, and operation of facilities.

PRESCRIPTIVE OPTIONS

In addition to the mandatory requirements for the indoor air quality, building ecological impact, operation plans listed in the above preceding narrative, Standard 189 also requires the additive usage of either a prescriptive or performance based compliance method.  The prescriptive options listed within the standard are discussed below.

INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

Prescriptive compliance options for indoor environmental quality components govern the requirement of sidelighting daylight options for offices and classrooms, office space shading conditions, and material VOC emissions.  

DAYLIGHTING BY SIDELIGHTING (8.4.1)
One prescriptive criterion for offices and classrooms is the inclusion of minimum sidelight aperture fenestration requirements and façade shading projection factors.

The following materials within building envelopes must comply with reduced volatile organic compound emission regulations.

• Adhesives and Sealants
• Paints and Coatings
• Floor Coverings
• Composite Wood + Agrifiber
• Office Furniture Systems
• Ceiling and Wall Systems

ATMOSPHERE, MATERIALS, RESOURCES

Prescriptive compliance options governing the building impact on the atmosphere, materials, and resources require various combinations of reduced impact, high recycled content, regional extraction, and biobased materials and products.

As required in the LEED Rating System, the proposed Standard 189 requires adherence to reduced impact materials.  A modest minimum 10% sum of post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the pre-consumer recycled content is required by the standard.  Regional materials require a minimum of 15% compliance within a 500 mile radius form the project site.  A minimum of 5% of building materials, based on cost, must be biobased products.

CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATIONS PLANS

A prescriptive option is not available for the construction and operational plan requirements in the standard.  Only the mandatory requirements are needed for adherence to the regulation.

PERFORMANCE OPTIONS

In the standard, the alternative to meeting a prescriptive option is to comply with various performance criteria, which can be substantiated with verifiable calculations.  In order to comply with a performative based approach, the following requirements must be met.

INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

In lieu of meeting the prescriptive option for compliance, projects may utilize a performative approach to indoor environmental quality attainment.  Projects seeking a performance based approach to indoor environmental quality may provide daylight simulation studies depecting usable illuminance levels in office spaces and classrooms.

Under this method, a minimum of 30 footcandles on a plane three feet above the floor shall be provided within 75% of the area.  Additionally, demonstrative studies must prove that direct sunlight does not strike on office work surfaces for longer than 20% of the occupied areas.

As an alternative to material emission prescriptive components, the emissions of materials may be modeled for comparable compliance.  This method is also allowed in the LEED Rating System.

ATMOSPHERE, MATERIALS, RESOURCES

In lieu of meeting the prescriptive option for building impact to atmosphere, materials, and resources, projects may utilize a performance based approached focused upon reducing various environmental considerations.  Projects using the performance option must provide a life cycle cost analysis for products meeting a subset of categories such as land use, resource use, climate change, ozone layer depletion, human health effects, ecotoxity, smog, and acidification.

CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION PLANS

A performative option is not available for the construction and operational plan requirements in the standard.  Only the mandatory requirements are needed for adherence to the regulation.

NEXT STEPS

Standard 189 is expected to be published in the first quarter of next year.  It is safe to say that the standard upon adoption will open up many more avenues for sustainable construction than prior to the release of the standard.  It will set a new benchmark for sustainable site excellence in the industry.  

At this point in time, the relationship of the standard to existing or future LEED Rating Systems is unclear nor the relationship between future versions of ASHRAE 90.1 or the upcoming International Green Building Code.  What is clear, however, is that the standard will raise the bar for sustainable construction and provide clear guidance for green building attainment regulations.