21st century school classroom floor loads

[JD2]

Was wondering what other Engineer's are using for supported floor (2nd floor, 3rd floor, etc.) live loads for the 21st century classroom concept in current school design. With older schools it was 40 psf classroom, 80 psf corridor's, 100 psf for stairs. Those areas were fairly well delineated by fixed framed walls. With the 21st century concept, the hallways essentially become "hubs", basically a general meeting area (non-fixed" seating) and the walls on many of the classrooms, both along the "hub/hallway" and between the classrooms have been replaced with "nanowall" glass partitions allowing rooms to be completely opened up and allowed to serve as a multiple class "meeting" rooms. On an earlier project I used 80 psf over the entire floor area, thinking this was overkill but not quite knowing how to delineate between "hubs" and classrooms since all you had to do was open a moveable glass partition and one could conceivably become the other. The concept of partition load is somewhat greyed since we provide an independent framing system for the nanowall systems to limit deflection and provide lateral support (it does vary a little depending on whether the nanowall system is bearing on the floor and laterally supported at the top or whether it is supported vertically and laterally at the top - regardless they cannot be moved without extensive framing modifications) meaning there are very few actual partitions on the floor to account for and those that are will most likely occur over beam lines. Was thinking about using 80 psf for the hub/hallway and primary classroom framing (to account for localized loading due to multiple classes in a single classroom (no additional for partitions) and then reduce the LL to perhaps 40 psf (plus any directly supported line loads) for the main grid framing supporting the primary framing. For lateral seismic I would still use 15 or 20 psf of the LL to account for the partition loading.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MrHershey]

Not above grade but since no one else has responded, will throw it out anyways.

We've looked at a 21st century school for the military. Same as you described, hubs with a lot of operable partitions that can divide the space up into smaller classrooms or leave things wide open. Per the RFP, the hubs were designed as 40 psf plus load for the partitions and any concentrated loads. Corridor loading (100 psf for ground floor) was reserved for the main corridors between hubs (not any hallways within the hubs resulting from however they have partitions arranged). Libraries, gymnasiums, storage rooms, etc. all had higher live loads as you'd expect.

Essentially each hub was treated as one giant classroom. From there, the way I had it reasoned out in my head was that the corridors within the hubs are similar in concept to corridors in private residential areas (which are also 40 psf, just like classrooms). Similar to private residences, the hubs are the end points, the destinations of the school. Users travel to them, not through them. So any corridors within the hubs resulting from however they have the partitions arranged at the time would only be occupied by people who are already accounted for in the classroom loading. The only corridors that would be the higher loading would be those public corridors connecting the hubs and other uses.

Might be worth discussing with the AHJ to get their take on it.