Design professionals shall utilize acceptable methods. Construction documents shall contain the design approach, analysis, research, computation and criteria for acceptance that specify the applicable design guides, and authoritative documents utilized to demonstrate that design objectives are met.
Design documents shall include design verification methods that are required to demonstrate compliance with design objectives and applicable authoritative documents and design guides.
Documents that do not meet the criteria for authoritative documents or design guides shall comply with the individually substantiated design method criteria in Appendix C.
Designs that propose to use documents that do not meet the criteria for authoritative documents or design guides shall not be permitted unless approval is given by the code official. The resulting performance-based design shall undergo an independent peer review process.