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Egress and Occupancy of Office Deck

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gnarkill283

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Nov 15, 2017
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New York
Please follow this link for my crude drawing of the situation: https://ibb.co/wJQQwXs I have a business floor with 4 offices in each corner. There's a giant deck outside that's partially covered by the deck above. I really hope I won't have to consider the deck an assembly space at 15 sf per occupancy because then I'd have an extra 757 occupant load. Can it be argued that the deck has no additional occupancy as it only services the people within the offices? Also how am I supposed to calculate common and max travel distances? Do I need to show 2 sets of these - one from the office and another from the deck or just the deck? Ironically from the deck, I have no problem because the common path (in blue) is much shorter but in the office (in green) its much longer and exceeds a 100' the way its drawn (it doesn't if the common path can end at the lobby). Your help is much appreciated. Thanks
 
gnarkill283 said:
Please follow this link for my crude drawing of the situation: https://ibb.co/wJQQwXs I have a business floor with 4 offices in each corner. There's a giant deck outside that's partially covered by the deck above. I really hope I won't have to consider the deck an assembly space at 15 sf per occupancy because then I'd have an extra 757 occupant load. Can it be argued that the deck has no additional occupancy as it only services the people within the offices? Also how am I supposed to calculate common and max travel distances? Do I need to show 2 sets of these - one from the office and another from the deck or just the deck? Ironically from the deck, I have no problem because the common path (in blue) is much shorter but in the office (in green) its much longer and exceeds a 100' the way its drawn (it doesn't if the common path can end at the lobby). Your help is much appreciated. Thanks
Click to expand...
need to know more about how the deck get used, but off the top of my head I would probably be assigning some assembly function of space to it.
 
Tim Mailloux said:
need to know more about how the deck get used, but off the top of my head I would probably be assigning some assembly function of space to it.
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The deck gets used by the office personnel only and we could restrict gathering up there at certain times if that helps us not count it as occupant load
 
This will 100% come down to the AHJ. Some AHJs will see an assembly space and demand a corresponding load factor for the space. Others may buy you restricting it to office personnel only.

Not sure if you are the architect/designer, but what is the intended use of the space? Could a business tenant host a happy hour on the deck? Could they invite outside guests to a function on the deck? If so, it seems like applying an assembly load factor would be the right choice. If not, a business load factor may be a reasonable argument.
 
ChrisCampbell said:
This will 100% come down to the AHJ. Some AHJs will see an assembly space and demand a corresponding load factor for the space. Others may buy you restricting it to office personnel only.

Not sure if you are the architect/designer, but what is the intended use of the space? Could a business tenant host a happy hour on the deck? Could they invite outside guests to a function on the deck? If so, it seems like applying an assembly load factor would be the right choice. If not, a business load factor may be a reasonable argument.
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I am the architect. The business tenant will use the space however they want but I don't understand why we can't just have a sign restricting the number of people out on the deck to by pass adding like 3 more stair cases to the building for one floor's deck. Anyway we will try to count it as business for now. Could I get help with which set of colored lines I should use to demonstrate common and max travel?
 
i think that if there is access control to the floor and the decks are only accessed through the private offices, then you can use that as justification for setting an occupancy limit to the roof deck. without more information, it seems like you'll really want to study exit access from the deck since you'll need 2 means of egress from any point on the roof and the offices will be kept locked.
 
I had a project in Dallas, Texas, with an outdoor space on the third floor of office over retail. The city did require us to calculate that as assembly occupant load. With the occupant load at greater than 500, we were considering adding a stair or a horizontal exit. We instead went with reducing the occupiable deck with landscaping.
 
gnarkill283 said:
Yes - the floor can only be accessed through key card controlled elevator and fire stair doors
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So what number floor is the deck above on???

And what number floor are the offices on??

Is the deck above,, the only thing on that floor?
 
The plan you see is the 3rd floor above an open sided parking garage, there are 2 more floors of office above it with progressively smaller decks
 
Here, there would not be any addition to the OL of the primary use, seeing how the deck is accessed through the B occupancy.
 
fatboy said:
Here, there would not be any addition to the OL of the primary use, seeing how the deck is accessed through the B occupancy.
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Using that same logic one could say there should be no added occupant load for a conference room because its accessed through he B occupancy.
 
Some uses one can expect that there could be additional occupants not necessarily associated with the office. A conference room would carry that expectation. Here (noticed the highlight, as in the reply), the deck would not carry that expectation. Like the restroom for that matter.
 
fatboy said:
Some uses one can expect that there could be additional occupants not necessarily associated with the office. A conference room would carry that expectation. Here (noticed the highlight, as in the reply), the deck would not carry that expectation. Like the restroom for that matter.
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that link it not working for me. and when you have a function of space that uses a gross calculation such as business, the restrooms do get included into the calculation and impact the occupant load.
 
Was not a link, was drawing attention to the word HERE.

Whatever.....tried to make a snarky comparison.

I would not include the deck.

Period.
 
gnarkill283 said:
The plan you see is the 3rd floor above an open sided parking garage, there are 2 more floors of office above it with progressively smaller decks
Click to expand...



Just wondering how you get at this::::

""""I really hope I won't have to consider the deck an assembly space at 15 sf per occupancy because then I'd have an extra 757 occupant load.""""

757??????
 
cda said:
Just wondering how you get at this::::

""""I really hope I won't have to consider the deck an assembly space at 15 sf per occupancy because then I'd have an extra 757 occupant load.""""

757??????
Click to expand...
11350 deck area / 15 sf per occupant = 757 occupants
 
just thinking out load here, but realizing that there is a deck above the deck on the floor in question means that the deck in question (atleast the area covered by the deck above) is part of the area of that floor. Now you want to argue that a large portion of your floor (the deck) has no occupant load? Best case it needs to get included in the gross business occpant laod calculation, worst case its an assembly type space with a much higher load. I think a call or meeting with the AHJ to get ahead of this early is in order.
 
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I second Tim's suggestion. Meet with the AHJ and explain why the contolled access would make it reasonable to count it as part of the business occupancy.
 
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