What square footage should a lecture hall to seat 150 people be?

Hi steamboat!

I was able to find many examples of lecture halls with a specific
square-footage-to-capacity ratio.  It appears that there are many
guidelines that are open to some interpretation, but they all fall
within the same range.  A good initial example is found at:
[ http://decker.colorado.edu/standards/archstand/v2002/pdf/Appendix-9.pdf
]
where building guidelines for lecture halls at that school are

"While interpretation of standards varies, the maximum number of loose
tablet-arm chairs that can be accommodated in a college classroom can
be approximated by taking the total square footage of the room,
subtract 100 sq. ft. for teaching area, thn divide by 15 sq. ft. per
student."

Applying this formula in reverse for a 150 student hall suggests that
2350 sq. ft. total would be required (15x150 + 100).

Another specification is found at:
[ http://www.umkc.edu/is/mts/ile/classroomdoc.htm ]

with the following guidelines:

"SEATING and ARCHITECT DESIGN                   
The standards from the National Fire Protection Association lists the
following means of egress or occupant load for rooms

Concentrated use, without fixed seating    7 net sq ft/person
Less concentrated use without fixed seating    12 net sq. ft/person
Bench-type seating                      Number of fixed seats
Classrooms                          20 net sq ft/person
Shop, laboratories, Vocational rooms     50 net sq ft/person
"

So applying these guidelines of 20 net sq. ft. per person, a 150
person lecture hall would require 3000 sq. ft.

Three other examples of lecture halls designed to accomodate 150
people are the Great Hall, Garett Room, and Clipper Room at Johns
Hopkins University, with dimensions of 1,768 and 1,892 and 1,890 sq.
ft. respectivly.
[ http://www.jhu.edu/~sao/scheduling/rooms.html ]

These are all slightly below the formula values described above,
probably due to the fact that they contain seating but not desk/arm
chairs, thus taking up less space than lecture halls with
desk-type-seating(I have been in all of these rooms).

I hope these guidelines have been helpful!

Sincerely,
Andrewxmp


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architectural code lecture hall capacity
"lecture hall" capacity "sq. ft."