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Given the physical limits to the capacity of the central campus, and the scarcity of capital for new facilities, UC Berkeley must optimize the use of existing assets. Reasonable and credible space utilization guidelines can serve as an objective baseline to:
- evaluate space requests for new or growing functions,
- project space demand for new projects, and
- ensure each campus unit is adequately and equitably housed.
Because campus units are not charged for the space they use, the tendency in any new project is to maximize the program. For its future tenants, who may have spent many frustrating years in substandard facilities, this is understandable. It is not, however, in the interest of the campus as a whole. Each dollar spent on unnecessary space is one less dollar available for durable and sustainable materials, adequate common spaces, and decent landscaping. Campus buildings endure far longer than their initial contents, and must be designed for the ages.
Precise campus standards for space utilization are elusive, due to the enormous variety and complexity of research space: but precision is not the point. What UC Berkeley requires is a simple and objective, but flexible, set of guidelines to ensure space is responsibly used and equitably distributed.
By far the most significant users of space on campus are the office and research functions of academic programs: they comprise over half of all core campus space. Until now, the nearest thing to space utilization guidelines UC Berkeley has had are the standards developed in 1990 by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, based on a massive nationwide study. The CPEC standards prescribed typical asf/person ratios for academic office and research space. Office standards are uniform, and include allowances for support space. Research standards, on the other hand, vary by discipline: CPEC defined six categories, with a typical standard for each.
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Office Space 
Since 1990, two major trends have influenced office space design: the growth in demand for conference and other interactive work spaces, and the expansion of the personal computer to every desktop. In light of these trends, table U.1 reflects several adjustments to the CPEC standards:
- Individual workspaces. 150 asf for faculty and 75 asf for postdocs and graduate instructors. Postdocs and instructors do not require workspaces as large as faculty: the typical workspace for these positions now is half of a shared 150 asf office.
- Conference space, including informal team workspaces. 10 asf per person, based on the average person spending a third of his or her workday in some form of interactive activity, and on conference spaces averaging 30 asf per seat.
- Workspace for support staff. The ratio of academic staff to support staff at UC Berkeley varies by discipline, from roughly 1.5:1 to 3:1. A reasonable individual workspace for support staff is 100 asf: using the midpoint ratio of 2.25 yields an allowance of approximately 45 asf of support staff space per academic staff.
- Service and storage space. A typical ratio for service and storage is 10% of all individual and group workspace, or roughly 20 asf per person.
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Research Space
Research space is a more complex problem. Changes over the past decade have no doubt been even more profound for research space than office space: but those changes are unique to each discipline, and to identify and characterize them would be a significant project in itself, on the scale of the original CPEC study.
However, the original CPEC taxonomy remains valid in terms of the basic types of research space. While specific factors may need to be recalibrated Ð for example, to reflect the increased use of simulation rather than field experiments Ð this may be done iteratively, as new program data become available from actual projects.
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Table U.1: Academic Space Guidelines
Space
Type |
Research Space
Description |
Position |
Ofc
ASF |
Res
ASF |
Total
ASF |
| A |
Office-based research: team project and conference spaces. |
| Faculty |
225 |
50 |
275 |
| Grad Instructor |
150 |
- |
150 |
| Postdoc |
150 |
50 |
200 |
| Grad Student |
- |
50 |
50 |
|
| B |
Combined office- and lab-based research: labs and project observation rooms often shared by several teams. |
| Faculty |
225 |
150 |
375 |
| Grad Instructor |
150 |
- |
150 |
| Postdoc |
150 |
100 |
250 |
| Grad Student |
- |
100 |
100 |
|
| C |
Individual or team studios for rehearsal or production. Moderate service and support, some special equipment. |
| Faculty |
225 |
150 |
375 |
| Grad Instructor |
150 |
- |
150 |
| Postdoc |
150 |
150 |
300 |
| Grad Student |
- |
150 |
150 |
|
| D |
Laboratories with moderate demand for infrastructure and environmental controls. Core space and equipment shared among research teams. Service/support 10-25% of lab space. |
| Faculty |
225 |
350 |
575 |
| Grad Instructor |
150 |
- |
150 |
| Postdoc |
150 |
180 |
330 |
| Grad Student |
- |
180 |
180 |
|
| E |
Large individual studios for creative activity. Special service/support required, often for equipment-based activity such as fabrication, editing and production. |
| Faculty |
225 |
500 |
725 |
| Grad Instructor |
150 |
- |
150 |
| Postdoc |
150 |
250 |
400 |
| Grad Student |
- |
250 |
250 |
|
| F |
Complex team-based laboratories with high demand for infrastructure, environmental controls, and special equipment. Service/support 25-50% of lab space. |
| Faculty |
225 |
500 |
725 |
| Grad Instructor |
150 |
- |
150 |
| Postdoc |
150 |
250 |
400 |
| Grad Student |
- |
250 |
250 |
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Implementation
The basic methodology for space guidelines is already in place at UC Berkeley. The designations of research space categories for each department are already used to prepare our yearly reports of campuswide space utilization to UCOP. In order to make the guidelines in table U.1 practical tools for space management, the campus should consider the following protocols:
- No capital investment should raise the asf of a college, division or school more than 10% above its guideline. While the guidelines should allow exceptions for unique circumstances, such exceptions should be granted only if the campus finds:
- the guideline can not be met at reasonable cost,
- the historic or architectural quality of a building must be significantly compromised for the guideline to be met, or
- the program requires equipment or modes of work not anticipated in the guidelines.
- Space guidelines should be enforced only at the level of college, division or school. The guidelines for individual departments shall be summed to yield a figure for the college, division or school as a whole. As long as this figure conforms to the 110% limit prescribed above, deans should have the discretion to allocate space among their departments.
- Space guidelines should apply only to the core campus and environs. As an incentive to relocate priority 3 functions to more remote sites, any space located outside the core campus and environs, as defined in figure 0.1, should be exempt from the guidelines calculations.
- Special types of space unique to particular disciplines should not count against the guidelines. However, if the guidelines are to be credible, the campus must minimize these special designations; otherwise, units would simply reclassify their space to meet the guidelines. Presently, each such designation requires both campus and UCOP approval: the campus should continue to hold such requests to a rigorous standard.
- The guidelines should be augmented to cover other types of core campus space as required. For example, the guidelines for academic office space could serve as a basis for similar guidelines for administrative offices.
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