Commercial space planning: every square foot working at its full potential

About HH Designers and our history with space planning

Space planning is the most consequential design decision in any commercial project and the one most often confused with the design decisions that follow it. A floor plan that allocates space correctly, that puts the right activities in the right proximity to each other and to the building’s circulation infrastructure, that meets code on egress and accessibility before the design begins rather than after it is complete, creates the foundation for every design decision that follows it. A floor plan that allocates space incorrectly produces a project that fights the design at every stage: corridors that are too wide in the wrong places and too narrow where they should be generous, conference rooms that are too small for the meetings they are supposed to serve, open plan areas that are too dense for the culture of the organization, and common areas that are too remote from the workstations to be used. The space plan is the document that determines whether the project delivers on its brief.

HH Designers has produced commercial space plans across 60 million square feet of projects in 21 states, spanning office, healthcare, multifamily, and mixed-use building types. Our space planning practice is grounded in the recognition that the plan is not a drawing exercise: it is an operational model of how the building will actually function, resolved on paper before anything is built. We approach space planning with the same rigor we bring to the design decisions that follow it, because a well-designed space with a poorly planned floor layout is a space that will frustrate its occupants regardless of its finish quality. The plan comes first, and it must be right.

Programming versus space planning: the sequence that matters

Programming and space planning are two distinct disciplines that are often conflated, and conflating them produces projects that either over-build or under-build critical functions because the brief was never properly articulated before the planning began. Programming is the process of identifying and quantifying the functions the project needs to support: how many workstations, how many conference rooms at what sizes, what support functions, what common areas, what service and back-of-house requirements. Space planning is the process of allocating those programmed functions to the available floor area in a configuration that meets the building’s operational, code, and experiential requirements. Programming comes first; space planning executes against it.

In practice, many commercial projects begin with a floor plan that works backward from the available area rather than forward from the programmed need. A tenant who occupies 12,000 square feet of existing space and is moving to a 10,000-square-foot new space needs a programming session that identifies which functions can be consolidated or reduced before the space plan attempts to fit everything in. A developer who is building speculative office space needs a programming analysis of the typical tenant for the building’s target market before the core-to-perimeter dimensions and the column grid are finalized. We offer programming as a service in its own right and as the prerequisite step to space planning for clients whose brief has not yet been articulated with the precision the plan requires.

Circulation efficiency: the invisible structure of the plan

Circulation is the system of paths that connects every function in a building to every other function and to the building’s vertical transportation and egress infrastructure. A circulation system that is efficient, that moves people directly and legibly between the destinations they need to reach without wasting floor area on corridors that are wider or longer than their traffic justifies, leaves more net usable area for the programmed functions. A circulation system that is inefficient wastes the building’s rentable area in corridors and transitions that do not serve the occupants’ needs. The difference between a well-planned and a poorly planned floor can be measured in hundreds of square feet of usable area on a typical commercial floor plate, which at market rents represents meaningful value to the tenant and the landlord alike.

Adjacency planning: putting the right things next to each other

Adjacency planning is the discipline of organizing programmed functions in the floor plan so that the functions that need to be near each other are, and the functions that should be separated are. In an office environment, the adjacency plan puts conference rooms near the workstation neighborhoods they serve, not adjacent to the building’s mechanical rooms or at the far end of the corridor from the people who use them most. In a healthcare environment, the adjacency plan puts exam rooms near the nurse station, support functions adjacent to the clinical areas they serve, and patient and visitor paths separated from staff and service paths. In a multifamily building, the adjacency plan puts the amenity spaces in the configuration that activates resident social interaction rather than siloing each amenity in its own corner of the building. Adjacency planning is the translation from the organizational diagram to the floor plan, and it is where most of the functional value of the space plan is created.

Code compliance in space planning: egress, ADA, and occupancy

Code compliance in a commercial space plan is not a review that happens at the end of the planning process. It is a constraint that must be integrated into the planning process from the first layout, because a plan that fails on egress or accessibility cannot be made compliant with cosmetic adjustments to the design. The egress path, the travel distance from every occupied area to an exit, must be within the limits specified by the applicable building code and fire code for the occupancy classification of the space. The accessible path of travel, from the building entrance through every common area to every occupied space the plan provides, must comply with ADA and applicable state accessibility code. Conference room dimensions, accessible toilet room clearances, maneuvering clearances at doors, and counter heights are all code constraints that must be resolved in the space plan before the design of those elements begins.

Egress planning for commercial occupancies

Egress planning in commercial spaces requires a clear understanding of the occupancy classification, the travel distance limits that apply to it, the exit access corridor requirements, and the number of exits the floor area requires. An open-plan office floor may have a travel distance limit of 250 feet with a sprinkler system; a healthcare occupancy may have significantly shorter limits and different dead-end corridor restrictions. We plan egress paths as a structural element of the floor plan from the first layout, ensuring that the design never reaches a stage where egress compliance requires moving walls, relocating programmed functions, or widening corridors at the cost of usable area. Egress designed in is always less expensive than egress corrected.

ADA and universal accessibility in the space plan

ADA compliance in a commercial space plan is not achieved by adding accessible toilet rooms and calling the plan accessible. The accessible path of travel requirement means that every occupied space must be reached via an accessible route from the building entrance, that every door on that path meets the maneuvering clearance requirements, that every threshold is compliant, and that every common area has the turning radius and knee clearance that the code requires. We integrate accessibility compliance into the space plan at the planning stage, where accommodating it costs only the adjustment of dimensions, rather than at the construction document stage, where it may require relocating walls, removing built elements, or reducing the net usable area of programmed functions.

Space planning for healthcare, multifamily, and office: sector-specific disciplines

Space planning in different building types requires different expertise because the functional, regulatory, and experiential requirements are genuinely different across sectors. An office space plan that optimizes for occupancy density and collaboration adjacency is organized around completely different principles than a healthcare space plan that must separate patient circulation from staff circulation, that must provide specific room dimensions and plumbing rough-in locations for clinical functions, and that must meet the requirements of state health department facility guidelines as well as building code. A multifamily space plan that optimizes the relationship between common areas and unit entry sequences is organized differently from both. We plan in all three sectors and bring sector-specific knowledge to each.

Office space planning: density, collaboration, and flexibility

The most contested question in contemporary office space planning is density: how many workstations per square foot of net office area, and how the density target affects the experience of working in the space. High-density open plan configurations that were built for the collaborative culture of tech companies in 2015 have been resoundingly rejected by the workforce expectations that followed the pandemic, and many organizations are now planning at lower densities with more private focus areas and better acoustic environments than the open plan provided. We plan office environments from a density and collaboration analysis that reflects the organization’s actual work patterns and culture, not from a benchmark that may not apply to the specific workforce the space is designed for. Modular versus fixed layouts, systems furniture versus built architectural walls, and the allocation between private offices, shared workstations, and focus rooms are all decisions we resolve in the space plan before the design begins.

Healthcare space planning: compliance and patient experience

Healthcare space planning is governed by a regulatory environment that office and multifamily planning is not: state health department facility guidelines specify minimum room dimensions, required adjacencies, ventilation requirements, and plumbing rough-in locations for specific clinical functions, and these requirements are not negotiable at the design stage. They must be resolved in the space plan or the project will not receive occupancy approval. We plan healthcare spaces with the facility guidelines as the governing constraint, identifying where the guidelines allow design flexibility and where they do not, and designing the patient and visitor experience within the envelope the guidelines define. A healthcare space plan that is both compliant and experientially excellent is a more demanding design problem than either constraint alone, and it is the design problem we are built to solve.

Multifamily space planning: unit mix, amenity relationships, and vertical stacking

Multifamily space planning operates at two scales simultaneously: the unit level, where the relationship between bedrooms, bathrooms, living areas, and storage determines the unit’s marketability; and the building level, where the relationship between unit types, common areas, amenity spaces, and vertical circulation determines the building’s operational efficiency and leasing appeal. We plan at both scales with the same rigor: unit plans are evaluated against the market’s expectations for the building’s price point, building plans are evaluated against the operational and experiential standards the development is designed to meet. Vertical stacking efficiency, the alignment of wet walls and structural bays across floors that reduces mechanical complexity and structural cost, is a space planning discipline that most benefits from early engagement before the structural system is fixed.

Our proven design process

Initial Consultation and Proposal

We begin with a complimentary consultation on your project’s functional requirements, your building type and occupancy, and the brief you need the space plan to execute against.

• A 30-minute consultation on your project requirements, occupancy type, and available floor area.
• A proposal with space planning scope, deliverables, and budget guidance for your specific project type.
• A simple digital agreement to initiate the engagement.

Programming and Discovery

We conduct the programming analysis that produces the brief the space plan will execute against, identifying every function the space needs to support and the area required for each.

• Programming workshop with the client team to identify and quantify every required function.
• Occupancy and code analysis: occupancy classification, egress requirements, accessibility standards, and sector-specific facility guidelines.
• Adjacency matrix development: which functions need to be near each other and which need to be separated.

Space Plan Development

We develop the space plan from the program brief, resolving circulation, adjacency, and code compliance in the first layout rather than correcting them after the plan is established.

• Multiple space plan options presented at the schematic level for client evaluation against program and operational goals.
• Egress and accessibility compliance verified in each option before presentation.
• Adjacency analysis of the selected option with specific recommendations for any adjacency compromises the floor plate requires.

Plan Refinement and Documentation

We refine the selected plan through the design process, coordinating with the architecture and engineering team to resolve the structural, mechanical, and code coordination that the plan requires.

• Space plan developed to the level of detail required for design development or construction documents.
• Coordination with MEP engineers on the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing requirements of the programmed functions.
• Furniture density planning with workstation layouts, conference room configurations, and common area furniture plans.

The Spec Book

Your Spec Book documents the space plan as part of the complete construction document set, for clean contractor handoff and a built environment that functions as planned.

• A complete printed Spec Book plus digital CAD files and PDFs including all plan drawings.
• Finish schedules, furniture layouts, and code compliance documentation.
• Egress and accessibility plans annotated for permit submission.
• Our team available through construction and occupancy.