Owner's Project Requirements (OPR)
The document defining an owner's goals and performance criteria for a building.
Quick Answer
Owner's Project Requirements (OPR) is a written document that defines the owner's goals, expectations, and measurable performance criteria for a building project. It covers functional needs, energy and environmental targets, comfort, maintainability, and budget and schedule. Central to the commissioning process, the OPR is the benchmark design, construction, and commissioning are all verified against.
The Full Picture
The OPR exists to write down, in measurable terms, what the owner actually wants a building to do — before design, construction, or commissioning can drift away from it. Owners hold goals in their heads and in scattered emails; the OPR forces those into an explicit, testable document so success has a definition everyone can point to.
The OPR captures functional and operational needs, occupancy and use, energy and sustainability targets, indoor environmental and comfort criteria, equipment and systems expectations, maintainability, and budget and schedule constraints. It is written in the owner's terms — outcomes and requirements — not technical solutions. The design team then responds with a Basis of Design (BOD) explaining how the design will meet the OPR.
The OPR is the anchor of the commissioning process. ASHRAE Guideline 0, the standard framework for commissioning, makes the OPR the reference every phase checks against — design reviews confirm the design meets it, and functional testing verifies the built systems perform to it. It's a living document, updated as the project evolves, not written once and shelved.
The OPR originates in predesign and lives largely in the owner and commissioning domain, upstream of and parallel to a general contractor's document-based preconstruction work. It isn't a drawing set to take off or bid. But it sets the performance targets that design and construction must hit, and unclear or missing OPR criteria are a common root cause of systems that get built but never perform as the owner expected.
A good OPR is specific and measurable — target energy use intensity, temperature and humidity ranges, redundancy requirements — so compliance can actually be verified. A weak OPR is a wish list of adjectives ('efficient,' 'comfortable,' 'flexible') that can't be tested. If a requirement can't be measured, commissioning can't confirm it, and the owner has no basis to say the building fell short.
Real Examples
Common Misconceptions
People assume: The OPR and the Basis of Design are the same document.
Actually: They're a pair with different authors and purposes. The OPR is the owner's statement of what's required, in outcome terms. The Basis of Design is the design team's explanation of how the design meets those requirements. The OPR sets the target; the BOD documents the response.
People assume: The OPR is a one-time predesign document.
Actually: ASHRAE Guideline 0 treats it as a living document updated throughout the project as decisions and conditions change. An OPR frozen at predesign and never revisited stops reflecting the real project, undermining the commissioning it's supposed to anchor.
Does MeltPlan Solve This?
Not directlyThe OPR is an owner and commissioning document that defines performance goals and criteria — written before and alongside design, not a construction drawing set. MeltPlan reviews and takes off completed drawings and specs, a different stage and scope. Developing an OPR is the work of the owner and a commissioning authority, not a document-review platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is included in the Owner's Project Requirements?
The owner's goals and measurable criteria: functional and operational needs, occupancy, energy and sustainability targets, indoor environmental and comfort criteria, systems and equipment expectations, maintainability, and budget and schedule constraints — written as outcomes, not technical solutions.
What's the difference between the OPR and the Basis of Design?
The OPR is the owner's document stating what the building must achieve. The Basis of Design (BOD) is the design team's document explaining how the design will meet those requirements. The OPR defines the target; the BOD is the technical response to it.
Why is the OPR important in commissioning?
Because it's the benchmark commissioning verifies against. Under ASHRAE Guideline 0, every phase checks the work against the OPR — design reviews and functional tests both confirm the building meets the owner's stated criteria. Without a clear OPR, there's no measurable definition of success to test.
Who writes the OPR?
The owner owns it, usually developed with help from a commissioning authority and sometimes the design team. It's created in predesign and kept current throughout the project as a living document, not written once and set aside.
Related Terms
More Preconstruction — Feasibility & Programming Terms
- Site Selection
- Zoning Analysis
- Entitlements (Development)
- Pro Forma (Real Estate)
- What is a Basis of Design (BOD)
- What is a Project Charter