Floor area, location, rent: three numbers almost every company uses to choose a space. They are the right starting point, but the criteria that determine whether that space will actually work lie elsewhere – and in most cases they get assessed after the lease is signed.
The standard criteria and their limits
Gross area tells you how much you pay. BOMA efficiency tells you how much you get. Two spaces with the same gross m² can offer very different genuinely usable area, because the weight of walls, cores and circulation changes. A company comparing two spaces on gross floor area alone is comparing different quantities. The rent per usable square metre, calculated to the BOMA standard, is the objective measure that makes comparison possible.
The factors you pay for over years
Beyond efficiency, there are structural variables that do not appear in the lease but shape how the space is used from day one. Floor plate depth decides how much natural light reaches the workstations and whether an open space will be livable or oppressive. Ceiling height affects acoustics and the scope for future building services. Services capacity – data, climate control, electrical power – determines the cost of upgrades, which is rarely included in the rent. These factors are seldom visible on a site visit, but you pay for them throughout the term of the lease.
Space must enable the way of working
An even less used criterion concerns the compatibility between the configuration of the space and the way the company works. A space designed mostly as open space is not suited to a team that spends 60% of the day in individual focus. A space without adequate support areas – small rooms for calls, informal spaces, transition areas – does not support collaboration even if the m² are there.
Through interviews and surveys we reconstruct the "typical day" of each team, surfacing both stated and latent needs. The data tells you whether the configuration of the candidate space – the mix of work settings and support areas – is compatible with the organisation's real operating model. It is the same method we use to size the desk sharing ratio. Applied to choosing a space, it avoids buying m² the space cannot give back.
A criterion often assessed too late is who will manage the delivery. Entrusting it to an established multidisciplinary team – architects, mechanical and electrical engineers, urban planners – that also handles works supervision, art direction and testing avoids the handovers between those who design and those who build, where consistency and control are usually lost.