Xinaps Spatial Requirements Assistant™ App continually monitors that all functional building requirements are met as different design options are investigated. As a result optimal design decisions can be made and mistakes will be clear from the start.

 

The Spatial Requirements Assistant allows you to check:

  • Floor area
  • Floor area ratio
  • Number of rooms per occupancy type
  • Number of rooms by room name
  • Number of toilets per gender
  • Amount of parking spaces
  • Number of plumbing fixtures


The app uses the floor area of all defined rooms in the model. Therefore it is important you add rooms to your model. No rooms defined in the model? Since Autodesk Revit 2015 with subscription you can place rooms automatically.

Using the Revit model

The Spatial Requirement Assistant just gets information from the model, such as:

  • rooms, 
  • room areas
  • parking spaces
  • plumbing fixtures

The app does not create new instance parameters in the model.

Project Units

The Spatial Requirements Assistant reads and shows the following units from Revit. You can change these project units in your Revit project.

§ HVAC – Temperature

§ HVAC – Velocity

It also reads the decimal symbol/digit grouping.

Floor area per function type

Required: rooms

The app uses the floor area of all defined rooms in the model. Without rooms the app cannot define floor areas needed to calculate the actual floor areas.

No rooms defined in the model? Since Autodesk Revit 2015 with subscription you can place rooms automatically.

Room occupancy

If you want to define different floor area requirements per occupancy type, you can use the room instance property occupancy. All floor areas of the rooms used in the cost input tables for building costs, exploitation costs, and rental fees are automatically grouped by occupancy type. For example: you have two rooms with occupancy type “office”, each having 30 m² of floor area. The input table in the Vabi Functional Need app will show “office” with 60 m².

Floor area per occupancy type; Needed

This table is automatically generated by the combined floor area of all rooms for eacht occupancy type. The actual drawn floor areas are shown. The required or needed floor area can be edited. The Spatial Assistant checks whether the actual drawn floor area is more than the needed floor area. If yes, the table row is checked green. If no, the table row is checked red.


Facilities checklist

Facility name

The Spatial Requirements Assistant checks model objects with the given requirements. You can filter the model objects by the given object name. For example, you can check all rooms with a room name containing the text “toilet” or “corridor”. You can also check the amount of plumbing fixtures with a name containing the text “urinoir”. For parking spaces and plumbing fixtures the family name will be filtered.

Unit

You can choose what you want to check with the given unit. The options are:

    § Area; the total floor area of all rooms with a room name containing the given facility text. Only applicable if rooms are present in the model.

    § Area rate; the total floor area of all rooms with a room name containing the given facility text, devided by the total floor area of all rooms, expressed in a percentage. Only applicable if rooms are present in the model.

    § Number of rooms; the total amount of room instances with a room name containing the given facility text. Only applicable if rooms are present in the model.

    § Number of parking spaces; the total amount of parking instances with a family name containing the given facility text. Only applicable if rooms are present in the model.

    § Number of plumbing fixtures; the total amount of plumbing fixture instances with a family name containing the given facility text.

Formula check

You can define whether the actual drawn value must be more or less than the needed value. You can choose:

    § = ; the actual value must be equal to the needed value.

    § ≤ ; the actual value must be smaller than or equal to the needed value.

    § < ; the actual value must be smaller than the needed value.

    § ≥ ; the actual value must be greater than or equal to the needed value. (recommended in most cases.)

    § > ; the actual value must be greater than the needed value.

Needed

The required or needed values can be edited. The needed value to compare the actual value gotten from the model with.

Area Analysis

The area analysis can generate the GFA, GIA, UFA and NSA automatically based on different area definitions in your Revit model.

§ Gross Floor Area (GFA) is the total floor area contained within the building measured to the external face of the external walls. This area is calculated by getting the area of the floor on each floor level.

§ Gross Internal Area (GIA) is the floor area contained within the building measured to the internal face of the external walls. This area is calculated by getting the area of all rooms per group, excluding certain room names.

§ Net Sellable Area (NSA) or Usable Floor Area (UFA) or Net Internal Area (NIA) is the GIA less the floor areas taken up by lobbies, enclosed machinery rooms on the roof, stairs and escalators, mechanical and electrical services, lifts, columns, toilet areas (other than in domestic property), ducts, and risers. This area is calculated by getting the area of all rooms per group, excluding certain room names.

§ Based on the excluded room names, defined under the app settings, you are able to change the area definitions.

§ The way the rooms are grouped can be defined under the app settings.