A room can be occupied and still create friction.
Employees may struggle to find the right space even when rooms appear available. A large conference room may be occupied by one or two people. A collaboration space may be overcrowded. In both cases, the room is being used, but not efficiently. Space Friction is designed to identify that problem.
As one of the four pillars of the InnerSpace Building Performance Index, Space Friction measures whether shared spaces are being used efficiently relative to their capacity. It focuses on spaces that are used often enough to matter, but not in a way that aligns with how they were designed to be used.
The pillar represents 25 points of the overall score and is built around one core metric:
This metric helps answer a simple question: Are our spaces being used in a way that matches their intended capacity?
Most workplace metrics focus on whether rooms are being used. Space Friction looks deeper.
A room can be occupied frequently and still create inefficiency. A 10-person room regularly used by one or two people limits availability for larger groups. A small room that is consistently overcrowded may signal unmet demand for larger spaces. The issue is not whether the room is occupied. It is whether it is being used appropriately for its size.
Space Friction is based on the Mean Space Friction Index.
Each eligible space receives a friction value between 0 and 1. Lower values indicate more efficient use. Higher values indicate more friction.
The index combines two factors:
The model uses 75% occupancy as the optimal target. Spaces create more friction when they are actively used but consistently above or below that level. This means Space Friction can identify both underfilled and overcrowded spaces.
Underfilled spaces are rooms that are regularly used by far fewer people than they were designed to support. Overcrowded spaces are rooms that consistently host more people than intended. Both situations create friction. One wastes capacity. The other signals unmet demand.
InnerSpace provides insights alongside the friction score so leaders can understand whether friction is being driven by underfilled rooms, overcrowded rooms, or a combination of both.
Space Friction can be applied across many types of spaces. In practice, organizations often get the most actionable insights from meeting rooms, conference rooms, and collaboration spaces. These are the spaces where occupancy mismatches are easiest to identify and easiest to address. A large conference room used by small groups or a collaboration room that is consistently overcrowded can reveal opportunities to improve the workplace experience.
Space Friction helps organizations understand not just whether these spaces are being used, but whether they are being used well.
Space Friction can be customized to reflect each organization's priorities.
The analysis can be filtered by:
Organizations can evaluate all shared spaces or focus on specific categories such as:
This flexibility allows leaders to focus on the spaces that matter most to their workplace strategy.
A high Space Friction score indicates that shared spaces are generally being used efficiently and at occupancy levels that align with their intended capacity.
A mid-range score suggests some mismatch between room size and actual usage patterns.
A low score indicates frequent inefficient use, whether through underfilled rooms, overcrowded rooms, or both.
The key question is not whether rooms are occupied. It is whether they are occupied in a way that supports the workplace.
The value of Space Friction lies in the decisions it enables.
By tracking friction patterns over time, organizations can identify where room supply and demand are out of balance and take action.
Common interventions include:
The goal is not perfect occupancy. It is ensuring that shared spaces support employees effectively.
Space Friction represents 25 points of the InnerSpace Building Performance Index because efficient access to shared space is critical to workplace performance. A workplace can have plenty of rooms and still create frustration if those rooms are not being used appropriately. By measuring how frequently spaces are used and how closely occupancy aligns with the 75% target, Space Friction helps leaders identify where shared spaces are creating hidden inefficiencies.
The result is a clearer understanding of workplace performance. Not just whether spaces are being used, but whether they are being used in a way that supports employees and the work they need to do.