Room data sheets provide a systematic overview of the building’s requirements. They are crucial for design, planning, and project development. They support communication and quality control, as well as help with change management.
They are typically created during the briefing phase (architectural programming in the US) of the project, in order to convey the clients’ requirements for each type of space. Then, they are used to develop specifications that help design teams and contractors comprehend what the client is expecting from the space and makes sure that the proposed solution meets the requirements of the client.
Architects make room data sheets by conducting interviews with clients and stakeholders. They are often unfinished and can be a living document’ until the design team has agreed to them.
When creating a sheet of data for a space, it’s important to to categorize the items you create as ‘general’ or “specific”. A common requirement could be that offices must be soundproofed up to a certain level, while specific requirements may include:
Layer’s digital room data sheets and predefined picklists allow you to gather all required information in an organized and efficient manner. This can help designers to think in a systematic manner about every possible requirement, reducing the chance of omitting or not noticing something. When you link your data sheets with an IFC floorplan, you can automatically create adjacency charts that show how requirements are translated into spatial solutions.
