Technical Guidelines

GSA's illustrated Technical Guidelines profile innovative preservation design solutions developed for GSA historic projects. All guidelines listed on this page can be downloaded as PDFs.

• Upgrading Windows in Historic Buildings [PDF - 784 KB]
  Preservation-appropriate solutions for window security and energy reduction retrofitting and replacement. Includes a Window Project Matrix for Historic Buildings
• Upgrading Lighting in Historic Buildings [PDF - 724 KB]
  Illustrates solutions for retrofitting existing historic lights, adapting replica fixtures, and appropriately supplementing historic lighting to meet energy reduction goals and tenant needs
• [PDF - 559 KB]HVAC Upgrades in Historic Buildings [PDF - 607 KB]
  Techniques for selecting, routing and detailing HVAC systems and units to preserve and restore historic spaces.
• Historic Building Roofing [PDF - 425 KB] 
  Design resources and tips for repairing and replicating historic roofing materials.
• Fire Safety Retrofit [PDF - 1 MB] 
  This guideline focuses on innovative design practices and recent advances in fire separation, detection, and suppression technologies that are solving some of the greatest code compliance challenges affecting monumental buildings with ornamental interiors.
• Perimeter Security for Historic Buildings [PDF - 2 MB] 
  Describes and illustrates GSA's prototype perimeter security kit of parts for integrating vehicle barriers into historic building sites as seamlessly as possible. The kit of parts offers a variety of elements that can be combined in different ways in response to differing streetscape conditions. Vehicle barrier elements in the basic prototype are designed to blend with a classically inspired, monumental courthouse constructed in the early 20th century. Two variations on the basic prototype use alternative architectural vocabularies to blend with a 1960s modernist concrete building and a Victorian brick building.