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Wilson Quad Basement notes 110 Pulpit Hill Road Amherst, MA 01002 p: 413-549-5799 f: 413-549-7918 www.facdarchitects.com March 4, 2019 Louis Hasbrouck, Building Commissioner Northampton Inspection Services lhasbrouck@northamptonma.gov Quad Basement Egress - Smith College Dear Hasbrouck, On November 13th, 2018 Allison Avalon Duke, Smith Project Manager, and I met with you to discuss egress from the basement spaces of the buildings within the Quad. You requested that I follow up with a letter which I am finally getting around to. The goal of the project is to limit student access to vast areas of the basements and, in so doing, make them safer. These areas are not well supervised and include electrical panels, transformer vaults and mechanical equipment. They will be partitioned with wire mesh walls and new exit signs will be added along the egress paths as needed. If you recall, there are many current and new dead-end corridors and single exits. However, with only one minor exception, these exit conditions meet the occupancy and travel distance for S-1 occupancies. Our meeting was to confirm that you accepted our interpretation of these as S-1 spaces with accessory laundry (R-2) use. The attached drawings include the following to back up our assertion that egress is safely addressed. 0.1: Occupancy and Travel Distances are calculated. Wilson is the only building in which the 103’ travel distance slightly exceeds the 100’ maximum allowed by code. This is illustrated on sheet W-1.1 Floor Plans: • The basement plans show restricted area in red hatch, student trunk rooms in green hatch, and laundry and other regularly accessed student areas in blue. • S-1 and R-2 mixed uses in Comstock and Wilder are separated with a ½ hour door (illustrated with heavy dashed black line). • Egress paths are shown: green lines in student areas, redlines in restricted areas. We appreciate your consideration of this letter. Please let me know if you require anything else between now and our permit application. Laura Fitch, project architect