The Area Panel shows how the area of your project adds up as you design: net (carpet) area, gross (built-up) area, excluded area, Floor Area Ratio (FAR) and space counts. It compares what you have drawn against the targets in Program Mode, so you can see at a glance which spaces are over or under their brief.
Open the Area Panel
In Design Mode or BIM Mode, look at the tab icons at the top of the right panel.
Click the Areas tab.
The panel opens with the heading Proposal 1: Area analysis (named after your current proposal). It has three parts: the settings at the top (View, Sort by, Filter and Configure), a chart, and the list of areas with totals.
Note: Each Design Proposal keeps its own area metrics, so the Area Panel reflects the proposal you are working in. To compare options, switch proposals from the Proposal dropdown in the left panel.
How spaces are counted
Every space has an Area Type: Net, Gross or Excluded. The Area Panel totals each space only under its Area Type.
Spaces with the Room space type count as Net by default.
Spaces with the Program Block space type count as Gross by default.
Excluded spaces count toward neither net nor gross area. Use this for things like roads, pools or gardens.
To change how a space is counted, select it and change Area Type in the Properties panel. You can also change it in the Area Type column of the program data sheet in Program Mode.
Tip: When Program Blocks and Rooms overlap, setting the right Area Type stops the same floor area from being counted twice.
Choose what to view
Open the View dropdown at the top of the Area Panel (it shows Carpet Area by default).
Pick one of the following:
Net Area (Carpet Area): spaces set to Net. Sort by tag category (for example Department, Building or Phase), Label or Story.
Gross Area (Built-up Area): spaces set to Gross. Sort by tag category or Story.
Excluded Area: spaces that count toward neither net nor gross. Sort by tag category, Label or Story.
F.A.R.: Floor Area Ratio against your site area. Sort by Story.
Count: the number of spaces. Sort by tag category, Label or Story.
Open the Sort by dropdown and choose how to group the rows.
Each grouping gives a different view of the same project:
Story groups spaces under the story they belong to, so you can check the area of each floor.
Label groups all spaces with the same label into one row, for example every "Meeting Room".
Tag category groups spaces by their tag, for example by Department, and shows a total for each tag. In the Net Area view, expand a group to see the spaces inside it.
Filter the Area Panel
Filters let you look at one slice of the project, such as a single story, one department or one layer.
Click Filter at the top of the Area Panel.
Choose values under any combination of tag categories (such as Department), Tags, Space Type, Story, Label and Layers. Each filter accepts one value or several.
Active filters appear as chips at the top of the panel. To remove a filter, click its chip.
Filters change the visible rows, the group subtotals and the totals at the top of the panel.
Note: Filters are saved for you, for this project, in this browser. Other collaborators don't see your filters, and your filters reset if you open the project in a different browser or on another computer. If a tag, story or label used in a filter is deleted from the project, it's removed from the filter.
Tip: Combine a Story filter with a tag category or Label filter to check, for example, the area of one department on one floor.
Compare your design with targets
Targets come from the program in Program Mode, for example after you import a program with Import Excel or use Set Targets. The area target for a label is its count multiplied by the area per space defined in the program.
Set View to Net Area (Carpet Area) or Count.
Set Sort by to Label or Department.
Turn on Show Targets.
Each row shows the achieved value in the darker number, with the target below it. Hover over a row to see what percentage of the target you have reached. As you add, resize or delete spaces, the achieved values, the percentages and the totals update.
Set the allowed deviation
Deviation is how far an achieved value can drift from its target before the Area Panel flags it. The default is 5%.
Click Configure at the top of the Area Panel.
Enter a new deviation percentage.
Click Apply.
Rows outside the allowed deviation are highlighted:
Orange: the achieved value is less than the target.
Red: the achieved value is more than the target.
Tip: Deviation works for Count as well, so you can check that you have drawn the number of rooms the program asks for.
Set up FAR
FAR is 0 until you give the panel a site area. The FAR calculation uses spaces and slabs.
Set View to F.A.R.
Click Set Target FAR or Configure.
Enter the Site Area.
Enter the Target F.A.R.
Click Apply.
The panel then compares the achieved FAR with your target. To leave a space out of the FAR calculation, clear the checkbox next to it in the list. Select the checkbox again to include it.
Note: If your project has more than one Design Proposal, each proposal keeps its own FAR settings. When you create a proposal with Configure, it starts with the targets and FAR settings of the proposal you branch from by default.
Switch between charts
The ring chart is the default chart. Hover over a part of the ring to see its values.
Click the chart icon to switch to a bar graph. You can sort the bar graph by story as well.
Find a space in the list
When you hover over a space on the canvas, the Area Panel scrolls to its row and centres it. This works across many combinations of view, sort and filter, which makes it quick to check where a space is counted.
When you use Duplicate Above or Duplicate Below, the right panel switches to the Areas tab so you can see the effect on your totals straight away.
Troubleshooting
Totals look too high: overlapping Program Blocks and Rooms, or site features such as roads, may be counted twice. Check the Area Type of those spaces and set anything that shouldn't count to Excluded.
A space is missing from the list: check your active filters (the chips at the top of the panel) and confirm the space's Area Type matches the current View.
Targets don't appear: Show Targets works only for Net Area and Count sorted by Label or Department, and only when the program in Program Mode has targets.
Numbers differ from a colleague's: filters are personal to each user and browser, and each Design Proposal has its own metrics. Check that you're both on the same proposal with no filters.
Related articles
Program Mode Overview
Space Types, Area Types and Opacity
Working with Tags
Design Proposals: Compare Options in One Project
Layers: Organize, Hide and Lock Your Model
Copy, Array and Duplicate