Sajjad Alt and General Rules of Thumb

[Jessican]

In doing Sajjad's alt, I was having some issues in adhering to the following rules of thumb:
- Always place a beam under a clerestory
- Always place a beam on lower level where lower level meets upper level

I believe that I followed these guidelines, but it seems like overkill a little in Sajjad's alts. What do you think? Are the beams I placed necessary or overkill? I didn't use any bearing walls in my solution.


Here is the program:
PROGRAM
NCARB realizes that candidates and former candidates spend long hours for reviewing the posts and concerns about their fitness. NCARB loves to see ARE candidates and Forum members physically fit therefore have invested a great amount of money to obtain the preliminary floor plan for the NCARB Fitness Center. Now you required to develop a roof framing layout for the portion of the building. The layout must accommodate the requirements given below:

Site/foundation
1. The site is going to have a great seismic activity when members try to release their frustration but do not consider any seismic activity and wind pressures for design purposed.
2. All of you already know NCARB doesn’t care for anything other than their own interests therefore, soils and foundation system should be assumed adequate for all standard and normal loads.
3. The distribution of concentrated or special loads need not be considered just like NCARB doesn’t consider wastage of candidate’s time due to their decisions.
4. Joists are sized to carry roof loads only.

Construction/ Materials
1. Structural steel/open web steel joists construction has been chosen for the roof structure type.
2. Steel beam sections are to be rolled or built-up.
3. The metal roof is capable of carrying loads on spans up to and including 5-ft.
General requirements
1. All portions of the roof framing are flat.
2. Cantilevers are prohibited.
3. Structural members must not extend into spaces adjacent to the program area.
4. Columns may be located within walls, including the window wall and any clerestory window wall.
5. Walls shown on the background floor plans may be designated as bearing walls.
6. Lintels must be shown at all openings in bearing walls.
7. The opening located between the Sajjad Yoga Hall and Lug-Nut’s Aerobics Hall must be unobstructed and column free.
8. The Sajjad Yoga Hall, Lug-Nut’s Aerobics and Damn NCARB Treadmill Room be column-free.
9. Window walls extend to the underside of the structure above.
10. The roof over the high ceiling space must be higher than the roof over the low-ceiling spaces.
• The Sajjad Yoga Hall and lug-nut aerobic hall requires a high ceiling with a top of structure height of 18 feet.
• The remaining spaces require a high ceiling with a top of structure height of 12 feet.
11. The structure must accommodate 2 clerestory windows at the following locations;
North wall of lug-nut aerobic hall.
West wall of Sajjad yoga hall.

Thank you!

[kkjeldsen]

Does anyone have an idea about how hard and fast the 40' beam and 30' joist span rule is? Sajjad's example shows 31' in the yoga studio. I have my test this coming Saturday and would appreciate any further insight.

Also I can't seem to get any confirmation or examples regarding lintels in bearing walls: In the real world the lintel would need to extend X' beyond the opening to bear. However since the i real world doesn't exist NCARB's eyes, I am unsure if I need to draw the lintel with and extension on both sides, or if that is going to ding me on the economy side of things.

Feel silly for asking such nitpicky things but there it is. Comments or direction to a post i missed is appreciated. Thanks