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. |
| Ideal group size | 5 ± 2 people, for developing and deciding |
| Floor area | Classic: 2–3 m² / person Agile · workshop · project: 4–6 m² / person |
| Occupancy | ≤ 70–80 % |
| Room shape | Meeting rooms rectangular, project rooms L-shaped Length-to-width ratio ideally 1.5 : 1 (max. ± 0.2) |
| Personal spacing | Min. 75 cm, ideally > 90 cm between people and per seat at the table edge |
| Circulation & clearances | Width min. 1 m, ideally 1.2–1.5 m |
| Visualisation surface | > 1 m² / person per half-day |
| Sightlines | From every seat, without body rotation (or max. 45°), to: 1. other participants · 2. shared content · 3. personal work surface |
| Storage | Classic: 5–10 L / person Agile · workshop · project: 15–30 L / person |
| Acoustics | Reverberation time < 0.6 s (better 0.4–0.5 s) Background noise ≤ 35 dB(A) |
| Light | 500 lx · > 80 CRI (better > 90) · 3,500–4,000 K · glare-free, incl. indirect Lighting priority: 1. faces · 2. shared content · 3. table surface |
| Air | < 1,000 ppm CO₂ · fresh air 30–36 m³ / person / h 20–24 °C · 30–60 % relative humidity |
| Format change | < 2 min by the participants, without tools |
| Technology & functions | < 2 s to find the in-room quick guides, including Wi-Fi |
| Power distribution | 1 socket per person |
| Sit / stand change | Format-dependent · possible for 100 % of participants in interactive formats |
Numbers describe a room. What makes it good is what happens between them.