General rules of most building design and guide lines are followed by UBC-Uniform Building Code. There are 3 volumes on this building code, and it is established at 1997. Since WTO and euro development picked up since year 2000, IBC-International Building Code some become more popular. IBC 2003 is the latest version. New York State actually combined both buildind codes and turned them into the most stringent code into one block. (I also found the simular situation in California). So here it is the from DOB of NYC Building Code:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/code.html
Use Title 26 and Title 27 from Volume 1 for most of the use. Preface is the table of content.
I was doing a lot of code check studies on the new designs in the office. This is one hell of experience you don't want to miss. For example How do you design a public spaces? How wide is the door? How long is the corridor? so on and so on..
Use the link from above and choose 'Means of Egress'
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/bldgs_code/bc27s6.pdf
use Table 6-1
To determine how big the space should be use Table 6-2
Unfortunately the number are all in english unit of INCHES, you need to convert the numbers manually.
P.S. some local codes may over ride federal codes and international codes. Above informations are for competition and reference purposes.