Test your floor's seating capacity
Occupancy ratios, not floor area. Change the sharing model and watch the peak day move.
How this calculator works
- Badged capacity = floor(desks × sharing ratio) + cabin seats. Cabins are always 1:1; nobody shares a director's office.
- Usable overflow = 40% of collaboration seats. Cafe benches, booth seats and touchdown perches count at four in ten, because the rest have no power, no acoustic privacy or no screen within reach.
- Total usable seats = desks + cabin seats + usable overflow.
- Peak-day demand = badged capacity × attendance rate.
- Verdict. Comfortable if demand fits in desks and cabins alone; tight if the overflow absorbs it; over capacity if it does not.
| Sharing ratio | Desks per person | Attendance policy it suits | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.00 : 1 | 1.0 | Full-time in office, assigned seats | None — but the most expensive per head |
| 1.25 : 1 | 0.8 | Mandated three days a week | Low; Tuesday and Wednesday run full |
| 1.43 : 1 | 0.7 | Three days, staggered by team | Moderate; needs a booking tool |
| 1.67 : 1 | 0.6 | Genuinely flexible, measured attendance | High without data |
| 2.00 : 1 | 0.5 | Field-heavy, client-site teams | Only credible for sales and consulting |
Design and build under one accountable roof
Why capacity is not the same question as desk count
Our workstation count calculator answers a geometry question: how many desk modules physically fit. This tool starts after that, with the desks already installed, and answers an occupancy question: how many people you can put on the payroll for this floor before Wednesday breaks.
The two numbers diverge sharply under hybrid working. A 66-desk floor carries 66 people under assigned seating and 110 under a 0.6 ratio — same furniture, same rent, nearly double the headcount. That is the whole commercial argument for hybrid, and it only holds if attendance is actually measured rather than assumed.
| Metric | Where it comes from | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Desks that fit | Module footprint and aisle width | Designer, at test-fit stage |
| Badged capacity | Desks × sharing ratio | HR and finance, at headcount planning |
| Peak-day demand | Badged capacity × attendance | Workplace team, weekly |
| Fire occupancy | Exit width and travel distance | Fire officer, at approval |
Reading the verdict honestly
- Comfortable means the peak day fits in assigned positions. Aim for this on a client-facing floor where people must be findable.
- Tight but workable means some people work from the breakout on Wednesdays. That is fine if those seats have a power socket within a metre and the acoustics are survivable. It is not fine if the only overflow is a bar stool by the window.
- Over capacity means you are relying on people not turning up. Fix it with a booking tool and staggered team days before you fix it with furniture — the software is cheaper than the floor.
- Whatever the verdict, keep two spare positions per fifty desks for contractors, auditors and the people who lost their booking.
Nobody complains about a floor that is 12% under-occupied. Everybody remembers the Wednesday they sat on the pantry bench with a laptop on their knees.
Greenbox commercial fit-out lead
Every constant above comes from Greenbox site records — measured drawings, signed BOQs and completion certificates from projects delivered between 2023 and 2026 — rounded to figures an estimator would actually use. We publish them so you can audit the arithmetic instead of trusting a black box. Treat the output as a planning figure: it is accurate enough to brief a landlord, a bank or a spouse, and not accurate enough to sign a contract against.
What this tool does not cover
- This is not a fire occupancy figure. Statutory occupancy is derived from exit widths and travel distances, and is set by the fire officer — never by a seating plan.
- Washroom, lift and pantry capacity are not tested here. Lift waiting time is the usual first failure at high occupancy, not seats.
- Parking allocation, which in Mumbai is frequently the binding constraint on how many people can actually arrive, is out of scope.
- Acoustic capacity is not modelled. A floor that seats 110 comfortably may be unusable for calls if only three phone booths were built.
- HVAC is sized on a design occupancy. Pushing a floor 30% past that figure shows up as complaints about stuffiness long before it shows up in a seat count.
Selected work by Greenbox Design Studio. Tap any image to enlarge.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate office seating capacity?+
Multiply the number of assigned desks by your desk-sharing ratio, add cabin seats, then test that badged figure against peak-day attendance. Count only about 40% of breakout seats as genuine overflow — the rest lack power, privacy or a usable work surface.
What is a good desk-sharing ratio for a hybrid office?+
0.8 desks per person for a mandated three-day week, 0.7 if attendance is staggered by team, and 0.6 only where flexible attendance is genuinely measured. Track badge data for a full month before committing — most organisations guess 0.6 and discover they need 0.8.
Do collaboration seats count as seating capacity?+
Partly. We count 40%. A booth with power and an acoustic back counts; a cafe stool at a high bar does not, because nobody does three hours of focused work there and everyone knows it.
Is seating capacity the same as fire occupancy?+
No, and they should never be quoted together. Fire occupancy is a statutory figure derived from exit width and travel distance. Seating capacity is a workplace planning figure. A floor can be within its fire occupancy and still be miserably over-seated.
What happens if we exceed capacity on peak days?+
First fix attendance, not furniture: stagger team days and introduce desk booking. If demand is genuinely structural, add benches at the same module width rather than squeezing aisles — narrow aisles create a safety problem that no amount of headcount justifies.