High Performance School Design Guides

To ensure that school buildings meet high performance objectives, school districts and designers are turning to voluntary performance guides, standards or rating systems. Based on well-founded building design codes and standards, these guides provide state of the art strategies for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental quality and reward innovative design practices and district-wide policies.

There are two widely accepted national criteria for high performance design:

• The Collaborative for High Performance Schools Best Practices Manuals (CHPS, 2006) are written specifically for California Schools. They are a pioneering standard which can be easily adapted to climate zones of the Northeast.

• The U.S. Green Building Council's "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design". New Construction (LEED-NC) or LEED for commercial buildings. California CHPS was modified by the USGBC for use in school building design (LEED-S, 2007).
  

There are a number of criteria developed for specific states or building characteristics based on these two forerunners:

• The New Buildings Institute Advance Buildings Benchmark outlines performance standards and options for ensuring energy efficient commercial buildings.
  

• The Washington Sustainable Schools Protocol (2004) adjusts CHPS to Washington codes, climate and school building regulations and incorporates portions of the Advanced Building E-Benchmark into the energy efficiency section.
  

• Rebuild America's Energy Design Guidelines adapt CHPS standards so that they may be applicable to the entire United States. These guidelines are divided into specifications for each of the five climate zones, which can be applied regionally.
  

There are four criteria written specifically for Northeastern states:

• New York CHPS version 1.0 High Performance Schools Guidleines (NY-CHPS 2007). The guideline has been tailored to New York code requirements, climate zone and the priorities of the State Department of Education.
  

• Massachusetts CHPS (MA-CHPS, 2006) adapts CHPS to Massachusetts building codes/standards and climate zone, school construction regulations and incorporates Benchmark and LEED-NC as appropriate.
  

• Advanced Building Benchmark for Maine sets performance standards and guides design professionals to meet Maine's 20 percent energy reduction requirements.
  

• The Northeast Collaborative for High Performance Schools Protocol (Northeast CHPS, 2007) is a regional guideline based on CHPS. It was developed with input from state departments of education from across New England and will be used by the majority of the states as a standard for school construction funding. For more information or to request a presentation on Northeast-CHPS please contact Carolyn Sarno csarno@neep.org