Space planning, in the workplace team's hands, is the arithmetic that decides how much floor a headcount needs before anyone draws where the desks go. Space planning in facilities management starts from three decisions the organisation owns, the desks per ten people the attendance supports, the area each desk position gets, and the meeting, support and circulation space around the desks, and works the floor and the square feet per person from them. Corporate space planning and commercial space planning run the same sum across teams and floors; facilities planning and facility planning run it across buildings; and the facility planning process is the order the decisions are taken in. This guide is that order, and the free worksheet on this site works every figure in it with no account.
The three decisions, and which comes first
The ratio comes first because it is the biggest lever and the only one the attendance decides: 126 people at peak from 180 assigned supports 7 desks per 10, worked by the space utilization worksheet from your own counts. The area per desk comes second, the workstation plus its share of the aisle, 60 square feet on the worked example, set by the organisation or its designer. The shared space and the circulation come third, 1,800 square feet of meeting space, 1,500 of support and 25% circulation, and they are allowances rather than standards.
The sum, per team and per floor
120 people at 7 desks per 10 is 84 desks; at 60 square feet each, 5,040 square feet; with the shared space, 8,340 net; with circulation, 10,425 square feet, 86.9 a person. Run every team through the same figures and the floor is a sum rather than a negotiation: a team of 36 needs 26 desk positions, a team of 12 needs 9. Space planning software has to hold the inventory those sums sit on so the plan can be checked against the attendance a year later; the arithmetic itself is free on this site.
Space planning facilities management: checking the plan against the floor
The plan is a prediction and the attendance is the result. A floor planned at 7 desks per 10 that runs at 90% of desks on its busiest day held; one that runs at 110% did not, and either the days are named to spread the load or the desk count changes. Facility planning software worth the name keeps the counts week by week so the check is measured; the free space utilization worksheet works any one week from the counts you enter.
What space planning is not, and the one external figure
It is not the layout, the furniture or the finishes, which are the office design question; this hub works the numbers under a layout and does not draw it. It is not the lease, which is property's. And the guidelines people search for are, in the end, the organisation's own figures: the one external reference on this hub is the U.S. General Services Administration's design requirement of 150 usable square feet per person for federal office space, quoted as a reference point that binds federal agencies and nobody else.
Questions people ask about space planning
Where does space planning start?
With the attendance. Measure the average and busiest day, work the desk ratio the floor can run, then work the desks, the area and the shared space from the headcount and your own allowances. The office space per person worksheet does the second half free from six inputs.
What is the facility planning process?
Ratio from attendance, area per desk from the organisation's standard, shared space and circulation as allowances, the sum per team and per floor, then the check against the attendance once the floor is in use. Each step is a worksheet on this site; the record behind them is HardFM Pro.
What should space planning software keep?
The inventory the plan sits on, the allocation per team, and the attendance counts the plan was sized from, exportable as tables. HardFM Pro keeps those for $24 a month for the whole team; it does not draw floor plans.