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

They are generally created during the briefing (architectural programming in the US) phases of a design project to clarify the client’s requirements for each space type. They then serve as the basis for specifications to help contractors and design teams know what is expected of the spaces, and to verify that any proposed solution meets the client’s requirements.

Typically architects create room information sheets through interviews with their clients and stakeholders. They are usually an ongoing project and can be a living document’ until the design team has agreed to the final version.

When creating a room data sheet the most important thing to keep in mind is to list all the requirements according to the type of space, and then categorize each item as either ‘general’ or ‘specific’. For instance, a common requirement could be that the office must be soundproofed at a certain level, while specific requirements could be here things like:

With Layer’s standard digital room templates for data sheets and pre-defined picklists, you can capture all required information in a simple and efficient manner. This helps to push designers to think strategically about the various requirements that could be required, thus reducing the possibility of overlooking 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 transformed into spatial solutions.