How it works
Floor plate size is usually quoted as the rentable or gross area of one floor. Shape matters as much as size. The depth from the core to the windows controls how much space gets daylight, the position of the core decides whether the floor splits easily between teams or tenants, and the column grid limits where rooms can go.
Large, regular floor plates let big departments sit together and make neighborhoods easy to reassign. Smaller or irregular plates suit smaller teams, and very deep plates can leave hard-to-use space in the middle, far from windows.
In planning, the floor plate is the unit of the stack plan. Teams are placed floor by floor, and each floor's usable area, after the core and circulation, sets its capacity. Knowing the real capacity of each floor shows whether a team fits, whether two teams can share, and whether a floor can be released.
How to measure it
- Record usable area per floor after the core, circulation and fixed rooms, not just gross area.
- Count capacity by space type on each floor: desks, meeting seats and team areas.
- Track occupancy by floor, so the stack plan shows which floors are busy and which are quiet.
Examples
- A department close to the size of one floor fits on a large floor plate but would have to split across two smaller ones, which breaks team adjacency.
- A building with a central core divides easily into two half-floor zones for two teams.
Common mistakes
- Comparing buildings on total area without checking whether their floor plates suit your team sizes.
- Treating gross floor area as capacity, which counts cores, shafts and circulation.
- Planning deep floor plates without enough daylight or quiet space in the middle.
How Kadence helps
Kadence floor plans show desks, rooms and neighborhoods floor by floor, and Workplace Insights reports occupancy by floor. In SpaceOps, auto-stack places teams on floors, planners can drag, lock or close floors, and plans go down to seat-level layouts on real floor plans that can be edited in the browser.
Space management · SpaceOps · Office space planning guide
Frequently asked questions
What is a good floor plate size for an office?
There is no single best size. Larger floor plates keep big teams on one floor and allow more layout options, while smaller ones suit smaller companies and multi-tenant buildings. What matters is whether your largest teams fit on one floor and how much space sits far from windows.
What is the difference between a floor plate and a floor plan?
The floor plate is the floor itself: its area, shape, core and columns. The floor plan is the drawing of how that floor is laid out, including walls, desks and rooms. The same floor plate can hold many different floor plans.
Why does floor plate size matter for stack planning?
Stack planning assigns teams to floors, so each floor's usable capacity decides which teams fit where. Floor plates that are too small force large teams to split across floors, while very large ones may need several teams to share and work well together.
Related terms
- Block plan A floor-level layout that assigns each team to a zone of one floor, between the stack plan and the seat-level plan.
- Stack planning A floor-by-floor plan of which teams occupy which floors and buildings, used to test moves and consolidations first.
- Rentable vs usable square feet Usable area is the space a tenant occupies; rentable area adds a share of common areas, and rent is charged on it.
- Space planning Deciding how office floor area is divided and allocated, from which teams go on which floors to where each desk and room sits.
- Team adjacency Placing teams that work closely together near each other, and keeping those links intact through every move.
Kadence editorial team · Last reviewed