Office space is sold by the square foot and occupied by the human body, and the negotiation between those two facts is the entire discipline of workstation planning. Get the dimensions right and a 1000 sq ft office seats ten people in comfort with room to grow; get them wrong and the same floor seats eight people who bump chairs all day, with the meeting room doubling as a corridor. The dimensions below are the industry-standard figures: the desk module, the chair zone, the circulation behind it, and the density benchmarks that translate headcount into floor area.
The base unit is the modular benching desk: 1200 × 600 mm per person, 750 mm high — the commonly cited standard across office-furniture catalogues and fit-out guides. That 1200 mm width holds a monitor, keyboard, and a working strip of desk; the 600 mm depth holds the monitor at a healthy viewing distance with the keyboard in front. The 750 mm height matches the standard task-chair range and keeps forearms level for typing. Around that desk, the standards add the human: 900 mm of clear space behind the chair for push-back and passage, drawn from the same chair-plus-access logic that Time-Saver Standards applies to dining (0.8–0.9 m for chair plus access).
This article lays out the workstation module in plan and elevation, the cluster geometry that multiplies one desk into a floor, and the density figures — square feet per workstation — that developers, brokers and HR heads actually argue over. Figures from published references carry their source; catalogue-standard figures are marked as commonly cited practice.
The workstation module: desk, chair, clearances
| Element | Standard dimension | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desk per person (benching) | 1200 × 600 mm | Monitor + keyboard + working strip; individual desks up to 1800 × 900 | Commonly cited practice |
| Desk height | 750 mm | Task-chair standard; meeting tables 725–750 mm | Commonly cited practice |
| Chair zone behind desk | 900 mm clear | Chair pull-out + passage; 600 mm passage-only minimum nearby | Brief; TSS dining logic 0.8–0.9 m |
| Main circulation aisle | 1200 mm minimum | Between bench runs; two-way traffic | Commonly cited practice |
| Meeting table, 6 persons | 1800–2000 × 900–1000 mm | Height 725–750 mm | Industry benchmarks |
| Meeting table, 8 persons | 2400 × 1000–1200 mm | 1200 mm clearance around for wheelchair passage | Industry benchmarks |
| Meeting space allowance | 1.5 m²/person open; 2 m² cellular | Net meeting-room area | Industry benchmarks |
| Task lighting at desk | 500 lux | Writing, typing, reading, data processing | CIBSE Code for Lighting |
| Conventional density | 85–110 sq ft per workstation | 7.9–10.2 m² | Industry benchmarks |
| Dense / call-centre | 55–75 sq ft per workstation | High churn, headset work | Industry benchmarks |
The 900 mm behind the chair deserves emphasis because it is the most commonly value-engineered number in office plans — and the first one occupants notice. A task chair needs about 600 mm to push back and stand; the remaining 300 mm lets a colleague pass behind without the seated person tucking in. Compress this to 700 mm and the office technically fits more desks, but every departure becomes a choreography and the circulation reads as a corridor of chair-backs. The 1200 mm aisle between facing bench runs serves the same logic at the room scale: two people pass, a chair pushes back into it, and the run still functions.
From one desk to a floor: cluster geometry
Desks multiply in clusters, and the cluster module is what the floor plate must accept. The standard cluster is a 4-person bench: two 1200 × 600 desks back to back making a 2400 × 1200 island, repeated down the floor with 1200 mm aisles between islands and 900 mm chair zones on the outer edges. A 4-person cluster thus occupies 2400 × (1200 + 900 + 900) = 2400 × 3000 mm, or 7.2 m² — 1.8 m² per person net of main circulation, meeting rooms, pantry and toilets. That net figure is the bridge to the density benchmarks: once circulation, meeting space at 1.5–2 m² per person, and support areas are added, the conventional office lands at 85–110 sq ft (7.9–10.2 m²) per workstation.
Support areas are where density plans succeed or fail. Meeting rooms at 1.5 m² per person (open plan) to 2 m² (cellular), a pantry, reception, server room, and toilets typically add 40–60 percent on top of the workstation net — which is exactly how 1.8 m² per desk becomes 85–110 sq ft per workstation in the conventional benchmark. Call centres compress to 55–75 sq ft by shrinking meeting space and support ratios; premium offices expand to 110–140 sq ft with larger desks, quiet rooms and generous circulation. When a broker quotes a floor as fitting a headcount, the honest check is to run this arithmetic backwards: floor area divided by the benchmark for the office type gives the real capacity, not the brochure's.
Two details complete the workstation: light and acoustics. The CIBSE Code for Lighting sets 500 lux for writing, typing, reading and data processing — the core workstation tasks — with 300 lux for filing and copying zones and 750 lux for technical drawing. In practice this means general office lighting designed to 500 lux at desk height, not at the ceiling; a floor that meters 500 lux at the ceiling and 300 at the desk is under-lit where it matters. Acoustically, the 400 mm divider screen in Fig. 1 is a visual-privacy device first and an acoustic device a distant second — real speech privacy in open plans comes from ceiling absorption, carpet, and masking sound, not from taller screens, which only block sightlines and daylight.
What workstations cost to build in 2026
Workstation furniture in India is priced per seat or per workstation by vendors, but the material costs underneath are the same board, laminate and finish rates that govern home furniture. The indicative material rates below are the ones a fit-out estimate is built from; the per-seat vendor price adds design, hardware, installation and margin on top.
| Material / component | Indicative rate, Oct 2026 | Role in a workstation |
|---|---|---|
| BWR plywood 18 mm (IS 303) | ₹90–130 per sq ft | Desk tops and modesty panels in durable fit-outs |
| HDHMR 18 mm | ₹90–120 per sq ft | Painted desk components |
| Decorative laminate 1.0 mm | ₹42–56 per sq ft | Desk top finish; ₹1,350–1,800 per sheet |
| Premium emulsion paint | ₹20–30 per sq ft | Wall paintable area ≈ carpet area × 3–3.3 |
| Cable tray + desk power | Indicative, verify locally | Per-desk line item; never omitted in a real estimate |
Where the standard works — and where to break it
- Software, back-office and sales floors: the 1200 × 600 bench with 900 mm chair zones is the proven default — dense, flexible, re-locatable.
- Design and CAD studios: move to 1500–1800 × 750–900 mm desks; 500 lux holds for CAD workstations per CIBSE, and large monitors need the depth.
- Call centres: 55–75 sq ft density with smaller desks works because headset work needs less surface — but keep the 900 mm chair zone; acoustic fatigue is the real cost of over-density.
- Cabins and senior offices: 1800 × 900 individual desks with 1200 mm clear around; density benchmarks do not apply inside cabins.
- Avoid shrinking the chair zone below 900 mm to gain seats — it is the first compromise occupants feel and the hardest to fix after furniture arrives.
- Avoid planning headcount from carpet area alone: divide by the density benchmark for the office type, then subtract meeting and support areas, then count seats.
Sources & standards
- Industry fit-out benchmarks — workstation desk 1200 × 600 mm; density 55–140 sq ft per workstation; meeting tables and allowances
- Time-Saver Standards for Interior Design and Space Planning — chair + access clearances 0.8–0.9 m (dining logic applied)
- CIBSE Code for Lighting — office writing/typing/reading 500 lux; CAD 500 lux; technical drawing 750 lux
- IndiaMART/TradeIndia dealer listings, Oct 2026 (indicative board, laminate and paint rates, excl. GST)
