The Importance of Room Data Sheets

Room data sheets provide a comprehensive overview of a building’s requirements. They are crucial to design, planning and project development. They support communication and quality control, as well as aid in the management of change.

They are usually developed during the briefing (architectural programming in the US) phases of a project to communicate the client’s requirements for each space type. Then, they are used to develop specifications that help designers and contractors determine what the client would like from the space and make sure that any proposed solution is in line with their requirements.

Architects create room data sheets through interviews with clients and stakeholders. They are usually a work in progress and are a ‘living document’ until the design team have agreed on the final version.

When creating a data sheet to a space, it is crucial to label everything as general or “specific”. For example, a general requirement might be that the office needs to be soundproofed to a certain level, whereas specific requirements could include things like:

Layer’s digital room data sheets and predefined listlists allow you to collect all the required information in an organized and efficient manner. This encourages designers to be logical and think about all requirements, reducing the chance of omitting or ignoring something. When you link your data sheets with an IFC floorplan you can create adjacency charts and see how requirements are transformed into spatial solutions.

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