Hi @ylouka - I can totally understand the confusion here, let me try to explain.
We’re at the schematic design phase in this example, so floor plans are not yet fully developed. It’s common to estimate the efficiency of the floor plate at this stage - by saying it’s 85% efficient, we’re noting that corridors, stairs, elevators, etc. will take up 15% of the floor plate. These spaces do not contribute to occupant load, so we must multiply the gross area of the floor by 85% to estimate the size of the dance studio.
After doing that, we use this number and multiply by the occupant load factor (50) to arrive at the number of occupants.
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