One of the most powerful influences on every project is something that isn’t as visible as other aspects: the building code.
If you’ve ever had a project stall because the code didn’t anticipate the solution you needed, you’ve experienced the limits of a strictly prescriptive system.
What is Performance-Based Compliance?
Performance-based compliance offers another path — one that allows design teams to demonstrate that a building meets the intent of the code through measurable outcomes rather than rigid requirements. While this approach has existed for decades, recent updates to the 2024 International Codes (I-Codes) give building officials expanded authority and tools to evaluate alternative materials, designs, and methods. This has made performance paths more viable than ever.
This shift reflects a broader industry goal that many of us have been working toward for years.
As the 2018 chair of the AIA Codes and Standards Committee, I was a co-author of a 2019 white paper, Disruption, Evolution, and Change – AIA’s Vision for the Future of Design and Construction, which called for greater reliance on performance-based approaches to help the profession meet long-term climate and innovation objectives.
Now, nearly seven years later, we still face many of the same challenges that were identified in that paper. One statement, in particular, still rings true today:
“… at a time when building performance should be rapidly advancing, we have seen building regulation development and adoption processes plateau or even regress in important areas. Codes have been historically slow to respond to change and technological developments. It can take a decade or more for a new concept to achieve acceptance and adoption into codes and standards.”
As a direct result of AIA’s efforts, significant updates to the "Duties and Powers of the Building Official" in the 2024 International Building Codes (I-Codes) have now enhanced the authority and tools for evaluating alternative materials, designs, and methods of construction by code officials, shifting them from their normally prescriptive code comfort zone.
Key Additions and Changes to Section 104 in 2024 included:
- Peer Review Requirement (Section 104.2.3.7): A new provision allows building officials to require a peer review report when evaluating alternative materials, designs, or methods of construction.
- Alternative Methods Focus: The revisions specifically provide better tools for evaluating advanced materials, such as foam plastics, insulated panels, and unique building envelope technologies.
- Alternatives Path: The ICC Performance Code is now virtually adopted by reference in each of the I-Codes as a method to demonstrate compliance as an alternative to a prescriptive approach.
Reimagining the Code
Through AIA’s efforts, the ICC is currently "reimagining" the ICC Performance Code to align with modern best practices, and an initial draft is currently available for public input.
• Objective: The performance-based approach offers flexibility to designers to use performance-based options, encouraging innovation.
Performance-based compliance is nothing new. We’ve seen it in the NFPA 101 Performance-Based Option (Chapter 5), allowing for engineering analysis and computer modeling to validate that a building design meets safety goals and providing an alternative to strict adherence to prescriptive code requirements if it meets specific, measurable criteria for designated fire scenarios. We’ve also seen it in the ICC Existing Building Code, Chapter 13, Performance Compliance Methods.
Neither of these two options have ever been widely used - yet. It is the intent of this blog and future blogs to discuss the origins of performance compliance and to advocate for their more widespread use.
Let’s begin with origins.
Origins
The Performance Compliance Method, also known as a “point system,” or “scoring system,” was likely based on the early insurance rating systems of the late 17th century following the great fire of London, which classified premiums according to the insurer’s building classification system.
Centuries later, concern with fire safety in existing high-rise office buildings in New York City (1973) and Chicago (1975) led to the development of a system that evaluated the contributions of individual features to a building’s overall fire safety, relative to the presence, absence and performance of individual fire safety systems (e.g., fire suppression, compartmentation, etc.).
NFPA 101A, Guide on Alternative Approaches to Fire Safety, has provided a means to assess equivalency to the minimum life safety provisions of NFPA 101, Life Safety Code since 1973. The same methodology was later applied to multi-family housing, board and care facilities, National Park Service overnight accommodations, detention and correctional facilities, and office and laboratory buildings.
With the publication of the International Existing Building Code (IEBC), the system now known as the Performance Compliance Method was incorporated, using both The Ohio Basic Building Code and the 1985 Supplement to the BOCA Basic/National Building Code “Repair, Alteration, Addition To and Change of Use of Existing Buildings,” developed by the Ohio Consultative Council of the National Institute of Building Sciences (OCC/NIBS) to encourage the rehabilitation of older buildings via eliminating the code penalty imposed for buildings undergoing a change of use or subject to a major rehabilitation project.
Advantages of Using the Performance Code Option
Many experienced in using this compliance method find it the most flexible way of identifying code solutions appropriate to existing and historic buildings. By allowing the existing building’s characteristics to be numerically expressed as safety attributes or deficiencies, its focus on an overall minimum safety score rather than the contribution of individual building components or fire protection features allows the user to develop code-compliant solutions that meet the unique conditions presented by an older existing building.
The advantages of this method are obvious: “predictability in lieu of reliance on the opinion of the building or fire code official, and the ability to quantify safety in an objective, codified scoring system.” The Performance Compliance Method can provide a means to establish the relative safety of an existing building when physical access to every part of a building is not possible, or if original construction drawings and construction history are not available.
Note is that the Performance Compliance Method of the IEBC is not meant to be a substitute to the ICC Performance Code and is distinct from the general use of the term “performance-based” by the code community. That is because the ICC Performance Code assumes that if an existing building is using the ICCPC, it is the result of having originally constructed all or portions of it under the Performance Code and would then need to be altered with the same performance criteria.
Additional benefits of the IEBC Chapter 13 are the user’s ability to determine where the greatest deficiencies lie by numerically testing different scenarios that might lead to a passing grade by changing one or more aspects of the proposed rehabilitation project. For example, installation of an automatic sprinkler system might eliminate the need to add a fire separation between floors of different occupancies. Trial-and-error exploration can reveal potentially flexible components of the proposed rehabilitation project (fire barriers, tenant separation, corridor wall construction, fire detection system, HVAC system, means of egress, dead-end corridors etc.), using the scoring system much like the COMcheck or REScheck spreadsheets for energy code compliance, until a passing grade is achieved.
The method can also be part of a condition assessment or feasibility study to evaluate any existing building with its current or proposed occupancy, as the calculations will identify deficiencies in the level of safety provided by the building. This is especially useful where occupancy levels or uses may have changed circumstantially over time, without any formal Change of Occupancy documentation being filed with the jurisdiction.
Limits to Acceptance
Among the many factors limiting a broad acceptance of the Performance Compliance Method is its use of a greater number of tables and formulas than in other codes or compliance methods that makes it appear complicated to learn and cumbersome to apply.
Burnham Can Help
Performance compliance can be a valuable option when prescriptive code requirements don’t align with the realities of a project — particularly in existing buildings, adaptive reuse projects, or designs using innovative materials or systems.
If your project is facing code constraints that may limit design flexibility, a performance path may offer a viable alternative.
Burnham Nationwide works with project teams to evaluate compliance strategies and help navigate performance-based approaches with building officials. If you are considering a performance path, our team can help determine whether it is the right fit for your project.
