Meeting Room Design: How to Plan Rooms People Book

How many meeting rooms, and what sizes

Start with your busiest day. Count how many meetings run at the same time, and how many people sit in each. That gives you the number of rooms and their sizes. Then add the client meetings you host, because those need the best rooms.

Most offices need more small rooms than they expect. Hybrid teams make many video calls from the office, and a six-seat room booked by one person on a call is wasted.

On our hybrid floor drawing, meeting and support space takes about 201 m² of a 720 m² floor. That covers two meeting rooms, a boardroom, phone booths, a focus room, the kitchen and breakout: just over a quarter. Our office space calculator shows the full sum.

Place the rooms by who uses them. Client rooms sit near reception, so visitors never cross the working floor. Team rooms sit near the teams that book them. Phone booths go among the desks, where the calls start.

Meeting room layout and furniture

The table sets the room. Pick its shape for the kind of meeting, then size the room around it, with space to walk behind every chair.

1. Long table. The boardroom shape: everyone faces the screen at one end.
2. Round or square table. Better for small rooms and discussion, where nobody sits at the head.
3. U-shape. For training and presentations, with the presenter in the open end.
4. Standing height. Short, quick meetings; a tall table with stools ends them on time.

Put the screen on the wall opposite the door. People can then come in late without walking through the picture. Keep the screen wall free of glass, so the camera does not film the corridor behind.

Glass meeting rooms and manifestation

Glass walls bring daylight into the middle of the floor and keep rooms visible. They also bring a rule. Under Building Regulations Part K, people must be able to see the glass, so they do not walk into it.

Approved Document K asks for manifestation on glass doors and glazed screens in offices at two heights:

1. Low band. Between 850 mm and 1000 mm above the floor.
2. High band. Between 1400 mm and 1600 mm above the floor.

Each band must contrast with the background in any light. A continuous band or broken line must be at least 50 mm high; a logo or sign, at least 150 mm. Glass doors set in a glazed screen also need a high-contrast strip at the top and on both sides.

Manifestation can do more than meet the rule. A wider frosted band gives seated privacy while keeping light. A pattern drawn from your brand turns a compliance item into part of the interior design.

Acoustics: keeping meetings private

A meeting room that leaks sound is not a meeting room. Sound rarely leaks through the middle of a good wall. It leaks round the edges.

1. The ceiling void. A partition that stops at the suspended ceiling lets sound pass over the top. Take it up to the slab, or fit a barrier in the void.
2. The door. A gap under the door undoes a good wall. Use a solid or acoustic glass door with seals on all four sides.
3. Ducts and services. A duct shared with the next room carries voices. Line it or add an attenuator.
4. Glass joints. Acoustic glass needs sealed joints and frames, or the gaps carry sound.

Then deal with the sound inside the room. Glass, a hard table and a screen make voices echo, which tires people and confuses microphones. Acoustic panels, a fabric wall or an absorbent ceiling calm the room. For the most private rooms, such as the boardroom and HR rooms, use solid walls.

Fresh air, light and temperature

Meeting rooms fill up fast. Twelve people in a small room warm it and use up the fresh air within minutes. That is why meetings feel stuffy by the second hour.

Approved Document F Volume 2 sets the outdoor air rate for occupied office rooms. It is 10 litres per second per person or 1 litre per second per square metre, whichever is higher. A boardroom for 12 therefore needs at least 120 litres per second of fresh air when full.

In new office buildings, the same document asks for a way to monitor air quality in occupied rooms, such as a CO2 monitor. Small spaces up to 50 m² of floor area are excepted. Even where it is not required, a monitor by the door shows when the room needs a break.

Light the room for faces and screens. Use soft, glare-free light on the table, dimming for presentations, and no bright fitting behind the screen or above the camera. Daylight helps, but blinds must stop the screen washing out.

HSE's guide of 11 cubic metres per person does not apply to meeting rooms. Size them from the seats, the table and the air, not from that figure.

Meeting room AV and technology

AV that takes ten minutes to start wastes every meeting. Design the room so one tap starts the call.

1. Screen and camera. One screen sized to the room, with the camera mounted on it, so remote people see faces, not tops of heads.
2. Microphones and speakers. Ceiling or table microphones for larger rooms; a single bar for a huddle room.
3. Power and data at the table. Floor boxes under the table, planned with the layout, so no cables cross the floor.
4. Booking panels. A screen at the door shows who has the room and frees it when nobody turns up.
5. Accessibility. The Equality Act expects reasonable adjustments, which can include an auxiliary aid such as a hearing loop. Plan the cable route now.

Plan all of it with the layout, before the ceilings and floors close. Adding a floor box after the carpet is down costs far more than drawing it in.

Boardroom and client suite design

The boardroom is where a headquarters shows who you are. It is the room investors, buyers and new hires remember. Design it as part of a client suite, not as a bigger meeting room.

1. Its own route. Guests go from reception to the client suite without crossing the working floor.
2. A table made for the room. Stone, veneer or solid timber, with power and data built in.
3. Joinery that hides the kit. A credenza or wall panel holds the AV, catering and storage out of sight.
4. A pantry next door. Coffee and lunch arrive without a trolley through the main office.
5. A divisible space. A moving acoustic wall can turn a boardroom and the room beside it into one event space.

The finish follows five-star hotel rules. Every edge, joint and fitting has to survive daily use and still look new.

Meeting room design ideas that get booked

The best meeting room design ideas make rooms easier to use, not just better to look at. These six do both.

1. Name rooms, do not number them. A name from your brand or your street is easier to find and book.
2. Mix the settings. A lounge room with soft seats suits a creative session better than another boardroom table.
3. A writable wall. Glass or a painted whiteboard wall keeps workshops on the wall, not on a flipchart.
4. Daylight on the long side. Put windows beside the table, not behind the screen or the chair at the head.
5. Phone booths among the desks. They free the bigger rooms for meetings with more than one person.
6. A view in, not through. Frosted bands at seated height give privacy and still show the room is busy.

From meeting room design to a finished floor

Meeting rooms are the most serviced part of an office. Air, power, data, AV, acoustics and lighting all meet in a small space. They work when they are designed and built as one job:

1. Count the meetings and fix the room mix from your busiest day.
2. Test the mix on the floor plan, with the client rooms by reception.
3. Design the walls, glass and manifestation with the acoustic and fire details.
4. Draw the air, lighting, power, data and AV into each room.
5. Agree the scope with your landlord through a licence for alterations.
6. Build, commission and test each room with your team before the move.

How the rooms sit within the whole floor is a layout question. Our guide to the main types of office layout shows plans for each.

Talk to us about your meeting rooms

We design and build offices and headquarters across London and the UK, with the design and the build under one contract. Our office design and space planning team plans the meeting rooms with the rest of the floor, then builds them with our own team.

Send us the floor plan, your headcount and the date you need to move. Book a free design consultation and we will come back to you the same working day.