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Understanding Area measurements used in InVision

Ben Yetman
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Overview

Reporting on how much total space an organization has is an important metric for any portfolio, but understanding key space measurement characteristics is absolutely critical to answering the more focused questions space managers and planners will have at multiple levels. InVision uses a number of different area measurement definitions to support space data management, automation, and business logic, so an understanding of they key terms is important.

As a general introduction, InVision uses the following Area definition terms as part of its core business logic:

  • Gross Area - The total sum of all area for a given entity. This means ALL defined Area for a Floor, Building, or collection of buildings, regardless of whether that space is usable, mechanical, architectural, etc. You can see an illustration of this concept here.
  • Net Usable Area - The total sum of all area for a given entity minus non-usable area. Think of this as the Gross Area minus space which is structural, architectural (space inside walls), etc. 
  • Assignable Area - The total sum of all area which has been deemed Assignable, or available for assignment to an occupant or specific use. Assignable Areas are used in the Space Utilization roll-ups that you will see in InVision, and are important measurements for Space Planners to understand Building and Floor capacity as well as occupancy/utilization. This consists of the Net Usable Area minus circulation, service areas, and mechanical areas.

These are important core measurement distinctions, because they are used at multiple levels to calculate roll-up values and drive business processes. The diagram below shows the basic relationship of these area measurement concepts.

AreaMeasurementConcepts.png

Details

More specifically, you can find these measurement concepts being used across different InVision data elements, some of which are calculated for you. The following details how Area Measurements are applied to different business objects in the core InVision database:

BUILDING

  1. Gross Area - Total Gross Area of the building (in sq ft) within the outside faces of its exterior walls. This value is updated via database trigger by rolling up Gross Area from your Building Floors. If you think your Building Gross Area looks wrong, first check should be to make sure your Floors are populated with correct values. 
  2. Net Area - Net Area of the building (in sq ft). This value is system generated, and represents the sum of all floor Net Area values for a Building.
  3. Usable Area - The total area of the building that is usable (in sq ft). This value is system calculated by rolling up sum of the building floors Usable Area.
  4. Assignable Area - The total area of the building that is assignable. This value is system calculated by rolling up sum of the building floors assignable area.
  5. Percent Usable - The percentage of usable area for the building. This value is system calculated and expressed as the usable area as percentage of gross area.
  6. Percent Assignable - The percentage of assignable area for the building. This value is system calculated and expressed as the assignable area as percentage of gross area

FLOOR

  1. Gross Area - Also often referred to as GSF, this value represents the total Gross area of the floor (in sq ft) measured to within the outside faces of its exterior walls. This is either populated by the CAD data interop process where the area of the GSF polyline is used, or manually entered by a user (if needed).
  2. Net Area - The total Net area of the floor (in sq ft) is system calculated by adding up all Spaces with a calculated Net Area. This automatically updates when space data is updated. Note that this is actually different than Usable Area, though often users will refer to the concept of 'Net Usable' when talking about Usable Area
  3. Usable Area - The total area of the floor that is usable. This value is system calculated by rolling up sum of the Spaces on that floor which have been designated as Usable. 
  4. Assignable Area - The total area of the floor that is assignable. This value is system calculated by rolling up the sum of Spaces on that floor which have been designated as Assignable.
  5. Percent Usable - The percentage of usable area for the floor. This value is system calculated and is expressed as an area or percentage of gross area (USABLEAREA / GROSSAREA * 100)
  6. Percent Assignable - The percentage of assignable area for the floor. This value is system calculated and is expressed as an area or percentage of gross area (ASSIGNABLEAREA / GROSSAREA * 100)
  7. Roof - Because organizations may want to include or exclude Roof areas in their space inventory, there is a toggle on Floors to indicate that it is a Roof. If the floor is designated as a Roof, it will not be used to inform trigger calculations for gross/net/usable areas.

SPACE

  1. Gross Area - Gross area of the space (in sq ft). This field is user managed, and can have measurement values entered manually or can be populated as part of the data interop CAD data import workflow.
  2. Net Area - Net area of the space (in sq ft). This value is populated by the CAD data interop process and will use measurement from CAD for each polylined space.
  3. Usable - An attribute at the space level where a user can indicate a space is Usable. This will automatically include it in system roll-up calculations for Floor Usable and Building Usable values.
  4. Assignable - an attribute at the space level where a user can indicate whether or not a person/employee can be assigned to the space. This will automatically include it in system roll-up calculations for Floor Assignable Area and Building Assignable Area values. Assignable is also used to calculate Density in InVision, which is the average assignable Area per assigned person in a Building.

It's also important to note that Space Classification is an important aspect of determining usable and assignable values for spaces, so make sure to check out the article on Space Classification.

In addition For Higher Ed, there are additional Space Measurement concepts which users may be interested in and can be accessed online at FICM 3-1 for Higher Education

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