Room data sheets are a systematic overviews of the building’s requirements and play an important role in planning and design as well as project development. They facilitate communication, quality assurance, and change management.

They are usually developed during the briefing phase (architectural programming in the US) of the project, to outline the client’s requirements for each kind of space. They are then used to create a specification that helps design teams and contractors know what the client wants from the space and make sure that any proposed solution is in line with their expectations.

Typically architects create room information sheets through interviews with their clients and stakeholders. They are usually a work-in-progress and can be a “living document” until the design team has gotten their hands on the final version.

When creating a sheet of data for a space, it is M&A transactions important to classify the items you create as ‘general’ or “specific”. For instance, a general requirement could be that an office must be soundproofed at a particular level, while specific requirements might include things like:

Layer’s room data sheets and predefined picklists allow you to capture all the necessary information in a logical and efficient way. This helps to push designers to think strategically about all possible requirements, minimizing the risk of missing or misplacing something. When you link your data sheets with an IFC floorplan and you are able to automatically create adjacency charts and see how requirements are translated into spatial solutions.