«It feels good» or «it feels bad»: almost every judgement about an office comes down to these few words. Yet behind that impression there is always a precise cause – and a measurable one. Space acts on behaviours before people notice, and the variables that shape that feeling can be measured, compared and designed.
Floor plan efficiency: the BOMA standard
The BOMA standard defines how to calculate the net usable area starting from the gross area: corridors, columns, shafts and wall thickness subtract m² that the rent charges for but people do not use. An unfavourable BOMA ratio is paid twice – on the cost per m² and on the actual space available – and almost always compensates by sacrificing the support areas: meeting rooms, phone rooms, informal zones. Knowing that number is the starting point for any reasoning about efficiency.
Environmental comfort acts on performance
Natural light – orientation, floor plan depth, window obstruction – affects attention over the course of the day. Acoustics: in a poorly designed open space, background noise is the first obstacle to focus, and it shows in where people move when they need to think. Air quality and thermal climate have measurable reference thresholds and are corrected through the systems and the layout. These parameters do not belong to subjective feeling: they belong to the design.
The fit between space and real activities
An office can have correct BOMA parameters and acceptable comfort, and still work badly – because the available work settings do not match the real mix of activities. Through interviews and surveys we reconstruct each team's typical day: how much focus, how much collaboration, how many calls, how much movement. Both the stated needs and the latent ones emerge – the established habits the space has to accommodate. The fit between that data and the existing layout can be measured; it is the same measure that governs the desk sharing ratio and guides every space planning decision.
The periodic check-up
Space is designed at a precise moment, for the needs of that moment. The organisation changes – teams grow, smart working is introduced, ways of working evolve – and the space stays still. The periodic check-up measures how the office is really used, compares it with the original design and identifies the gaps. Some corrections concern the layout, others comfort; in both cases we act on established causes, on data.