Does anyone understand what the area quantity in structural footing schedule is suppost to represent? For example on a 8'x8'x2' pad footing, the area schedules 96sf. Top surface area should be 64 sf, bottom should be 64 sf, and side surface area should be 64 sf. After some figuring we determined that 96sf is exactly 1/2 of the total surface area of 192sf. (64+64+64)/2 = 96sf. it is the same for all the pad footings, but I don't know if it's the same for other foundation systems.. Hopefully there is a structural engineer out there that can help me understand what good this number does? For me it's worthless.

checked in 2012 and 2014, same thing both times