How Architects Find Max Occupancy For a Building

Have you ever seen those maximum occupancy signs in a room somewhere and wondered, why is it that number? This room couldn't fit 100 people, could it? Well, believe it or not, Architects need to calculate that number to design a room in case of a fire. Today, I’m gonna show you how we figure out the occupant load in buildings by using a real project as an example.
00:00 Intro
00:53 Last week's work on this new project
01:38 Why are those max occupancy signs put in rooms?
02:28 The floor plan for this building is simple
02:58 Where we look in the building code. Chapter 10: Means of Egress
03:35 How offices are calculated for max occupancy
05:25 How Assembly spaces are defined
06:00 Lobbies are classified as business spaces
06:25 Break rooms are assembly spaces too
07:00 We only calculate occupancy for habitable spaces
07:33 The meeting room is a more complicated assembly space

[@LifeofanArchitect_TylerD]

Have you seen one of these Max Occupancy signs before?

[@pennythompson1362]

Very informative, thank you!

[@LifeofanArchitect_TylerD]

Thanks for watching!

[@manueldinis1569]

Good info, Mr. Tyler 👍

[@LifeofanArchitect_TylerD]

Thank you 💪🏻

[@marcismarkiz2081]

Learning every day...😅

[@LifeofanArchitect_TylerD]

We all are 😁

[@shakenbake11]

My only question - why would you round UP the max occupancy ? Wouldn't it make more sense to round DOWN the max occupancy to be conservative?

[@LifeofanArchitect_TylerD]

You have to round up to plan for a worst case scenario. The purpose of determining max occupancy is to plan for the maximum amount of people that need to exit the building or space in the event of a fire. If you plan for more, the building is theoretically safer by code. Hope this makes sense!

[@claytonoconnor8376]

You're calculating Gross area incorrectly,
Review the definition of "Floor Area, Gross" in chapter 2