Optimal size of room per bed

According to documents I've found online, my state has a couple of requirements for hotels/motels (hostels are never mentioned), including:

• sleeping rooms must be at least 60 sq ft (5.6 sq meters) per guest
• beds must be a minimum of 36 inches apart

We don't quite hit either of those in all of our rooms, but my boss insists that we are grandfathered in as an exception.

We also seem to be an outlier in that our dorm rooms are all twin beds, no bunks. While many guests are pleasantly surprised by that, having 4 twins in a room under 220 sq ft (20 sq meters) leaves very little open floor space. My quick calculations are that my 4- and 6-bed dorms end up having 30-33 sq ft (about 3 sq meters) of open floor space per guest. (And, we don't have under-bed lockers, just sturdy free-standing lockers in the hallways of 2 of our 4 floors... so guests generally keep their things on the floor next to their beds.)

So, I'm curious about how other hostels have chosen the number of beds/bunks in rooms of various sizes to

• meet applicable lodging establishment laws and codes
• provide comfortable yet efficient sleeping space to guests

Thanks!