Room data sheets provide systematic reviews of a building’s needs and they play a vital role in planning design, development and project development. They facilitate communication, quality assurance, and change management.
They are usually developed during the briefing phase (architectural programing in the US) of the project, in order to convey the client’s requirements for each kind of space. They are then utilized to create specifications that help design teams and contractors comprehend what the client is expecting from the space and ensures any proposed solution is in line with their requirements.
Architects make room data sheets by conducting interviews with clients and stakeholders. They are usually a work-in-progress and can be kept as a “living document” until the design team has agreed on the final design.
When creating a data sheet for a space, it’s important to remember to categorize everything as general or “specific”. A typical requirement is that an office must be soundproofed to a certain degree and specific requirements could include:
With Layer’s standard digital room data sheet templates and predefined picklists, you are able to record all the necessary information in a streamlined and efficient way. This helps designers think systematically and consider all requirements, reducing the risk of overlooking or missing something. When you link your data sheets with an IFC floorplan and you are able to automatically create adjacency charts to see how requirements are translated into spatial solutions.
