§ 15.08.060. Design requirements.

A.

The design for all buildings and other structures shall conform to good engineering practice. The following table gives the minimum uniform live loads in pounds per square foot which shall be used in the design of buildings, except that the specified live loads (but not the roof or sidewalk loads) may be reduced by twenty percent in buildings of fireproof construction:

1.

Theaters, assembly halls; other places of assemblage, and auditoriums with fixed seats, seventy;

2.

Lobbies, passageways, stairways and auditoriums or places of assemblage without fixed seats, one hundred;

3.

Dancehalls, one hundred;

4.

Theater stage, one hundred fifty;

5.

School buildings, libraries and museums; classrooms and rooms for similar use, sixty;

6.

Corridors, laboratories and similar public parts of the buildings, eighty;

7.

Hotels, dwellings, apartments and tenement houses, clubhouses, hospitals, and places of detention: dwellings, forty;

8.

Private rooms and apartments, forty;

9.

Public corridors, offices, lobbies, dining rooms, etc., eighty;

10.

Office buildings: first floor, one hundred;

11.

Corridors and other public spaces above the first floor, eighty;

12.

Office space above the first floor, fifty;

13.

Grandstands, one hundred;

14.

All stairs, one hundred;

15.

Garages: all types of vehicles, one hundred, and passenger cars only, eighty;

16.

Workshops, factories and mercantile establishments, not less than one hundred;

17.

In warehouses, workshops, factories and mercantile establishments for the sale, storage or manufacture of heavy merchandise or machinery the floors shall be designed to carry all loads safely, including the allowance of at least twenty-five percent for vibration where vibration occurs;

18.

Roofs, thirty;

19.

Sidewalks, two hundred fifty.

B.

If any building where the maximum floor load is more than two hundred fifty pounds a square foot, the sidewalk must be designed to carry safely such maximum load.

C.

Concentrated, partial, and eccentric loading shall also be provided for.

D.

Except in buildings for storage purposes the following reductions in assumed total live floor loads are permissible in designing the columns, piers, walls, foundations, trusses and girders. Reduction of total live loads carried:

Carrying one floor	0%
Carrying two floors	10%
Carrying three floors	20%
Carrying four floors	30%
Carrying five floors	40%
Carrying six floors	45%
Carrying seven or more floors	50%.

 

E.

Buildings and other structures shall be designed to resist a horizontal wind pressure of twenty pounds on every square foot of exposed surface, in addition to the dead loads and the live loads specified above.

F.

If the overturning moment due to wind pressure exceeds seventy-five percent of the moment of stability of the structure due to dead load only, the structure shall be anchored to its foundations, which shall be of sufficient weight to ensure the stability of the structure. Sufficient diagonal bracing or rigid connections between the uprights and horizontal structural members shall be provided to resist distortion.

(Prior code § 15-4F).