Determining if Renovations to an Existing Occupied Structure Adhere to IBC

Detailing and working with building codes and building code requirements is very, very critical and importance piece of what we do everyday in our projects. For this particular project, there's an existing structure, an existing occupied structure. Which means that, whatever intervention that we can do, has to either modify or change all of the jurisdiction's understanding of that. Or has to not impede on it. Additionally, because this existing structure is a lot of different editions and a lot of different code reviews, we thought it necessary and important to include our modern interpretation.

Since we were actually changing the function of some of the spaces. And changing the exit-ways of some of the spaces. We included our interpretation of the code plan, as it exists for the building. This is something that, in Minnesota, especially, we're required to do almost on every project. Other jurisdictions have other rules. But it's a very common practice in an industry, to do something of this manner.

Speaking to the authority having jurisdiction. Whether it's a city, county, government, municipality, whomever. Whomever's building it resides in. This is a very common way to show our, kinda, architectural intent. And how we're gonna provide really good health, safety and welfare for the building and the occupants of that building. So, in this particular example, we abided by 2015 Minnesota Building Code. Which is longhand for saying, 2015 International Building Code with some modifications.

It's also very, very common in a lot of municipalities. They'll make... tweaks or variations within their region of the world, to kinda cater the International Building Code to them. Minnesota, being no exception to that. But we did abide by I-B-C 2015 as well. And we reference I-B-C 2015 a lot as well. The most important ones that are very, very common.

We tend to outline, are chapter three, five... and six. Probably the most common three. And those generally refer to chapter three. But then I-B-C is gonna refer it to what occupancy the building is. This is existing education and it's fairly easy. If you're working with lots of projects where you. They can be a lot more complicated than that. But this one's all education. So, that one's actually quite easy.

Again, it's an existing building. So, general heights and areas are always the same. We just telling the code official, hey, we're not changing anything. We're gonna keep it as it is. And if you guys have a problem with that, please let us know. And then, for this building, the last one, that's kind of important, is the type of construction. The type of construction over this building has changed over the years. 'Cause the codes themselves have changed over the years. So, this is just saying, our interpretation of it is that, even though the types of construction of this building have sort of changed with how the code reads, it is still valid within the modern code of the types of construction this exists as.

Uniquely, for this project, we changed a few things related to accessibilities. We added a few notes about that. We changed a few things about egress, in and out of the building. We added some additional notes to that. This way, it's a little bit easier to see on our plan here. We added this new entry-way here and changed it.

So that some of the building in the office wing, can exit through that entry-way. And this little formula right here says, yes, our door is, in fact, big enough for that many people to exit through that entry-way. So, this is the type of information that we would use, to kinda detail and work through code in jurisdictional inquiries for projects.

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