Floor area (building)

Floor area (building) (FA) is a building, architecture, and real estate term referring to the amount of area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the building should or should not be included, such as external walls, internal walls, corridors, lift shafts, stairs, etc. Generally there are 3 major differences in measuring floor area.^[1]

• Gross floor area (GFA) - The total floor area contained within the building measured to the external face of the external walls.
• Gross internal area (GIA) - The floor area contained within the building measured to the internal face of the external walls.
• Net internal area (NIA) (or usable floor area UFA) - The NIA is the GIA less the floor areas taken up by lobbies, enclosed machinery rooms on the roof, stairs and escalators, mechanical and electrical services, lifts, columns, toilet areas (other than in domestic property), ducts, and risers.

References

1. Jim Smith and David Jaggar, Building Cost Planning for the Design Team, Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 2006. Duncan Cartlidge, Quantity Surveyor's Pocket Book, Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 2009.

External links

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/propertymanagement/space/faqs Imperial College London, Department of Property Management.