I am working on Daylight in Nonregularly Occupied Spaces. The project is also pursuing Daylight in Regularly Occupied Spaces. My questions pertains to the definition of "Un/Occupied Spaces". LEED definition states:
"Occupied spaces are enclosed areas intended for human activities. Unoccupied spaces are places intended primarily for other purposes; they are occupied only occasionally and for short periods of time - in other words, they are inactive areas. Examples of spaces that are typically unoccupied include the following: Mechanical and electrical rooms, egress stairways, closets in resience (but a walk-in closet is occupied), data center floor area, inactive storage area in a warehouse. Regularly occupied spaces are defined as more than one hour of continuous occupancy per person per day, on average."
My question is, does a phone room, huddle room, and conference room count as a "Regularly Occupied Space", if it isn't used everyday or by every person or even for a full hour? The book uses a conference room as an example of a regularly occupied space, but our building has 30+ conference room. Surely not every room will be used every day. Where would PHONE ROOM, HUDDLE ROOM and CONFERENCE ROOM fall?
Alara Brinton
9 thumbs up
August 20, 2020 - 9:46 am
We tried, and couldn't make the case for our smaller board room (rarely used) as non-regularly occupied. It is rarely used, and rarely used for over an hour, but since it's still classified as a small board room and at any point there MAY be a meeting that goes over an hour, it's regularly occupied. Even our large board room can go a week or two without use, but the purpose of the room is that there will likely be meetings one or more hours so it wasn't accepted, even if there's proof that the average time spent is less than an hour. Our phone room/booth, yes was non-regularly occupied, but it's a one person room and meant for personal calls which wouldn't be taking an hour...but I would say both the huddle room and conference room would be classified as regularly occupied even if not used every day. It's possible you could try and make your case, but might not be worth the effort.
Stephanie Graham
Sustainability ManagerBurns & McDonnell
26 thumbs up
January 21, 2021 - 6:39 pm
Regularly occupied spaces are defined by use and duration of occupancy--spending at least an hour of continuous occupancy a day performing seated or standing work, study, research or other focused activity.
Since pc116 is Daylighting for Non-Regularly Spaces--Include these areas: breakroom, copy room, circulation, corridors, lobbies, restrooms, lockerrooms, stairways and some specialty areas for hospital and residential facilities.
Do not include these spaces, since they are Unoccupied Areas: mechanical/electrical/IT/utility rooms, egress stair, dedicated emergency exit corridor, data center floor area including raised floor area, inactive storage areas in warehouse or distribution centers, closets in residential. Areas used for equipment retrieval are unoccupied only if retrieval is occasional.