Parking Garage Considered as a Separate Building

Sometimes several buildings are built over a common basement used as a parking garage. For example, in certain housing designs, separate low-rise buildings are built over a common basement parking garage (Figure 9.1.-8).

Ordinarily, such a structure would be considered a single building, and the building area would be the area of the basement parking garage. Because this area tends to be fairly large, the entire building would normally fall outside the scope of NBC Part 9. If, however, the basement parking garage is separated from the buildings above it by a concrete or masonry slab having a fire-resistance rating of at least 2 h, these buildings can be considered separate buildings (NBC Article 9.10.4.3). 

In Figure 9.1.-8, buildings A and B would be considered as separate buildings having their own building areas and would probably fall within the scope of NBC Part 9. The parking garage, however, would probably fall outside of the scope of NBC Part 9 because of its large area. 

Quoted from Illustrated User's Guide - NBC2015

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