Gross floor area vs. Regularly Occupied Area

Ashley Love

Senior Associate

ADW Architects

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

November 24, 2015

I just received my design preliminary review back for a Schools 2009 project and they commented on PIf3 that the total regularly occupied area reported was inaccurate because some of my gross areas were not the same as the regularly occupied areas for each space usage type. This is true in that I have different numbers listed for gross area and regularly occupied area in each space usage type because for the gross floor area I included the area for partitions, but for the regularly occupied I did not, essentially the regularly occupied area is a net area excluding the partitions. How should I revise this? Just make my regularly occupied areas the same as the gross even though it would include wall area, and possibly hurt my other credits? Or, put my gross wall area in another space usage type?? I was trying so hard to make sure that everything would be consistent across my credits that require the regularly occupied area and now I'm perplexed as to how to make this work. Any ideas, past experience is appreciated!

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Kristina Bach

VP of Innovation

Sustainable Investment Group

LEEDuser Basic Member

110 thumbs up

Wed, 11/25/2015 - 00:49

I'm wondering if the concern was actually that your Regularly Occupied SF was too high? Typically this number is substantially different from the overall GSF. There are numerous spaces in the GSF that wouldn't be considered Regularly Occupied (Mechanical rooms, storage rooms, closets, etc.) so those numbers inherently should be different. The reviewer definitely shouldn't be asking you to make sure those all match. My thought is that just switching to Net SF isn't really accurate and may actually be too high as you still are supposed to exclude a lot of spaces beyond just the space occupied by the partitions. My understanding is that the Regularly Occupied Area columns only really cross-populate to the IEQc8 credits. One way that I've seen this clarified is to provide color-coded floor plans that highlight the areas you've included as Regularly Occupied. That allows reviewers to check your plans to make sure that you have included all the spaces as required which meet the the Regularly Occupied definition (see the IEQ Space Matrix if you need clarification on those). These sort of plans also demonstrates to reviewers that you are looking at the right denominator for those credits and should eliminate any questions. If the reviewer really did ask you to make those consistent, that definitely should be a question you send in to GBCI for additional clarification before you actually submit for the Final Review (http://www.gbci.org/contact) as GSF should not align exactly with the Regularly Occupied SF.

Ashley Love

Senior Associate

ADW Architects

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

Wed, 11/25/2015 - 20:43

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I don't think that it's because it's too high because it's a school so mostly made of classrooms, which are regularly occupied spaces. My total regularly occupied area works out to about 63% of the total GSF. I have 7 usage types: Classrooms and Core-Learning Spaces, Educational Non-Core Learning Space, Circulation Space, Office Space, Mechanical and Electrical Rooms, Food Service, and Other Service. For each usage type on the form I am to list the GSF and the Regularly Occupied Area for each of the usage types, which I did. 4 of my usage types have regularly occupied spaces (Classrooms/Core-learning, Educations Non-Core, Office, and Food Service). The problem is that for each of those usage types/groups of spaces I have the GSF which includes the area of the walls that separate the ROA's but are still in that usage area and then the ROA which does not include the wall partitions (area inside walls). Should the area for the walls go into another usage type or should the area for the walls not be included at all? If I don't include the wall area then the total GSF at the bottom of the table does not match the GSF I list on PIf2. I don't know where I should put the wall area that is a part of the GSF but not the ROA, but they are wanting those to be the same. I was trying to make sure everything worked out so that the ROA would match what is being submitted for the IEQ8 credits, which is why I did not include the wall area . . . I do like your idea of giving them a highlighted plan. I actually made one my own to keep track of the different usage types and the square footage. I think I will also send the question to GBCI to see if I can get any clarification.