A handful of numbers come up again and again when you plan a meeting room: how much floor area per person, how long the reverberation, how much fresh air, which sightlines. We’ve gathered the most important ones here as a reference to look up.
These are the general metrics for the room itself — independent of how it is furnished and equipped. The fit-out, the products, the brand of furniture: that’s a separate question. Everything below holds regardless.
Three things up front. First: these aren’t laws or standards. They’re values that have proven themselves across many rooms. You can deviate from any of them — you just need to know why.
Second, and more important: a room that hits every number isn’t automatically a good room. And a room that misses one or two isn’t automatically a bad one. Numbers describe a room; they don’t make it. What truly makes a meeting room good — the right job, clear sightlines, the behaviour it invites — won’t be found in any table.
Third: the numbers are still worth a look. They’re a fast sanity check, a shared starting point, and a reliable way to avoid the worst mistakes. That’s all they are — and all they need to be.
| Metric | Reference value |
|---|---|
| Number of rooms | Incl. open / informal areas: 1 room per 5–10 employees Excl. open areas: 1 room per 10–20 |
| Size mix | > 2/3 of rooms for fewer than 7 people At least 1 large multifunctional room The rest for 7–12 The common problem is too many participants, not rooms that are too small — so don’t oversize. |