Room Calculation Point and Department Spaces

[Anonymous]

The issue:  A large space is broken down into small rooms (with room separation lines).  A fire extinguisher is mounted on a column fur-out adjacent to an office supply room, but needs to report "RECP" because that's the tag we're displaying on plan.  See attached screenshot.  

I know room calculation points can be stretched, but there could potentially be hundreds of elements (duct diffusers, elect panel boards, doors, etc.)  that would need to be adjusted.  Is there an ideal workflow for this problem that I'm just not seeing?  I imagine breaking up an "open office" to report cubicle square footage is not uncommon.  Thoughts?

[ToanDN · Accepted solution]

I usually have a "REPORT ROOM NAME" shared parameter assigned to Rooms category and all the child cubicles within an open office will be named OPEN OFFICE for that parameter. This is not only for tagging/scheduling equipment, but also for grouping room areas for egress calculations.

Another option is adding an invisible line with an instance length parameter in the equipment family so that you can stretch it in the project so that the room calculation point falls into the desired room.  There was some downfall with this method but I don't remember since I have abandoned it for a long time.

[Alfredo_Medina · Accepted solution]

Perhaps you could make this subdivision as a separate area area plan, instead of dividing rooms into smaller rooms, which is causing this issue with your tags. 

[Anonymous]

@ToanDN, @Alfredo_Medina, thanks for the quick responses!

I like the ideas of a "REPORT ROOM NAME" shared parameter and separate area plans for room subdivision.   The parameter mapping section of the BIM Interoperability Tools can be adjusted to accurately report room/space information with the custom shared parameter.  

Areas may require further study.  Some of our room schedules would probably have to be modified/recreated to report Area information.  I also have concerns on how third party tools like SEPS to BIM will operate with "areas" instead of "rooms".