Building Envelope Area Definition
Hi everyone, I encountered this term in a BS practice exam, but it seems to have nothing to do with the building envelope. It appears to describe a zone on a lot that could potentially be built on, but is a really misleading description. "Building envelope area" to me is quite clearly the area of the envelope of a building, has anyone encountered this before?
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Hi Eoin,
The term Building Envelope also refers to the area of a lot limited by setbacks, and sometimes it also defines max buildable heights.
Below is a link to the zoning code of the Town of Hillsborough in CA as an example of this:
Take a look at the following chapter / section: 17.28.010 - Building envelope.
hope this helps!
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This is a helpful note.
Building Envelope Area - can mean:
The actual BUILT building walls floors and roof that compose the entire building
The POTENTIAL area that can legally be built upon on a site
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Eoin Byrne I know the question in Black Spectacle you're talking about. It's a case study one of a villa on top of a hill. I got confused by this question as well. In that question they call "Building Envelope" what is actually a footprint of the building. I also started calculating an area of an envelope of a building. I think it is wrong use of term. In my 5 years of practice I never saw a footprint of a building being called an area of an envelope. Area of an envelope is a sum of all areas of exterior walls. So I'm with you on that one.
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Hi Eoin and Kirill -
We agree that the previous terminology was a bit confusing. We've since rewritten this case study (and all of our case studies, actually), so this question has been retired. Good luck in your studies and thanks for choosing Black Spectacles!
Chris Hopstock RA
Black Spectacles
ARE Community -
adschopstock, There is another wrong answer in Black Spectacles. This time in PPD, second exam. There is a question in case study about the required amount of accessible entrances to the building according to IBC. Black Spectacles saying that one accessible entrance is enough, while the correct answer is 60% of all the entrances. Could you also fix that questions. Otherwise people studying from Black Spectacle will walk into the ARE exam believing that one accessible entrance is enough.
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Hi Kirill - thanks for bringing this to our attention!
The question you reference is a case study, where we provide a code excerpt that includes IBC 1104.1. It does not provide IBC 1105 or ADA as a reference, which is why the answer to that case study question is 'provide at least one accessible entrance'.
We'll revise this question so that it provides the entirety of chapter 11 instead of an excerpt, so that it's closer to a real-world example.
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