We are working on a community college science building with laboratory classrooms, and based on code we have a total of 400 students. The building will be open based on the school calendar (about 3/4 of the year), and all the science labs will not be occupied to its capacity (400 students) all at once.
How would I calculate the Peak period occupants taking into account all these variables?
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David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1976 thumbs up
October 21, 2013 - 6:50 pm
The code occupancy is usually much higher than average or even peak occupancy. Code is primarily concerned with fire safety, so that number is an estimate of the maximum number of people that is possible, but LEED is concerned with the maximum number of people that is likely.
The college would be the best source of this number - the registrar or the office doing room scheduling may have access to the number of students enrolled in classes and the number of classrooms in use at the busiest time. Another option would be to assume every seat or chair is full, and see if that number looks realistic. You can start with that number and reduce by a % based on input from the college. The exact method you use to calculate peak occupancy isn't so important, as long as it sounds reasonable.