Describing residential layouts in real estate involves a fair amount of domain-specific terminology. This page provides a brief overview of these terms. The whole point of our floorplan plugin abstraction is to make it easier for users to intuitively perceive the professional terms covered below.
Overall Layout
Single-level, Loft, Split-level, and Duplex
A single-level unit is one in which all rooms — living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, and so on — are located on the same floor.
A loft unit is one in which rooms of different functions are arranged across separate levels, with the upper and lower levels connected by a small staircase inside the unit, giving it a villa-like feel. Typically the ground floor holds the living area, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom, ideally with one bedroom as well, while the second floor holds bedrooms, a study, a bathroom, and the like.
A split-level unit is one in which the various functional rooms of a single residence sit on different planes, using height differences to partition the space. It has clear gradation and a strong three-dimensional feel, but is not divided into two full floors. It suits the renovation of large residences over 100 square meters. Structurally, it means the floor slabs of the same level are not on the same plane but have a certain height difference.
A duplex unit is, conceptually, a single floor, but with a greater floor-to-ceiling height than an ordinary unit. A mezzanine can be carved out in part of the space to hold a bedroom, study, and so on, with a staircase connecting the upper and lower portions. The purpose of a duplex is to add usable area within a limited space and improve the unit's space utilization. Whether it is a standalone villa or the connection of two stacked floors in a high-rise, both are also called duplex.
Squareness of Layout
A square layout means that, when viewed from the floor plan, the overall shape of the unit is fairly close to a square.
South-facing Orientation
South-facing orientation means that the main functional rooms of the unit (such as the living room and master bedroom) face south, or equivalently, that the unit's main daylighting face is on the south side.
Frontage (Bay Width), Depth, and Frontage-to-Depth Ratio
Frontage, also called bay width, is the width between the east and west walls of a unit or a single room;
Depth is the distance between the south and north walls of a unit or a single room;
Frontage-to-depth ratio is the ratio of frontage to depth.
In general, a larger frontage means a larger daylighting face, while a larger depth means a larger area that receives no natural light.
South-North Through-flow and Fully-lit Layout
South-north through-flow means that ventilation runs unobstructed from south to north with no walls in the way, allowing smooth overall airflow and maximum air circulation;
A fully-lit layout means that every room has a window for natural light, the interior is bright throughout, and there are no dark rooms.
Unit Structure / Stairwell-to-Unit Ratio
Unit structure refers to the stairwell-to-unit ratio — how many units share each stairwell. For the same shared stairwell area, "one stairwell, two units" means two households split the cost, while "one stairwell, four units" means four households split it. From this perspective, the more units there are, the smaller each household's shared area, and the higher the usable-area ratio.
Compact (Small) Unit
A compact unit is a loosely defined concept; its area is usually under 70 square meters. In a compact unit, there is no clear division between bedroom and living room in the functional layout, and it adopts an all-in-one bathroom and an open, eco-friendly, energy-saving integrated kitchen.
Local Layout
Active/Quiet Zoning (Separation)
The active zone refers to areas of relatively frequent activity, such as hallways, the living room, and the kitchen.
The quiet zone refers to areas requiring quiet and relatively little activity, such as bedrooms and the study.
In general, the living room, dining room, kitchen, music room, and the like need to accommodate frequent comings and goings and frequent activity, which is what gives a home vitality and energy; meanwhile, bedrooms used mainly for rest and sleep clearly need the greatest possible tranquility. They should therefore be strictly separated, so that those resting can rest in peace and those moving about and having fun can do so freely. This is the active/quiet zoning (separation) of a unit.
Circulation Path
The circulation path refers to the routes people take when moving around inside a unit. Whether the circulation path is smooth affects whether people can transition smoothly between various activities. The unit's design influences the direction of the circulation path, and the direction of the circulation path affects the quality of living.
A good circulation path improves a unit's utilization. There are three main types of circulation paths within a unit: the living path, the household-chores path, and the visitor path.
Common examples of units with poor circulation include: having to cross the living room to get from the entrance door to the kitchen, the kitchen being too far from the dining room, and the bathroom being too far from the master and secondary bedrooms while facing directly toward the front door.
Dark Room
A dark room is a room that cannot be naturally lit and has no window for ventilation. For a storeroom this may be acceptable, but if the bathroom is a dark room, it tends to breed mold, becomes damp, and has a major impact on quality of life.
Wet/Dry Separation
Wet/dry separation generally refers to separating the washbasin from the shower area. With traditional bathroom fixtures, steam fills the room everywhere after a shower, and damp air lingers in the bathroom for long periods, polluting the air. Dividing the bathroom in two, separating wet from dry, keeps the area outside the shower dry and hygienic and maintains the cleanliness and appearance of the overall bathroom environment.
Load-bearing and Non-load-bearing Walls
A load-bearing wall is a wall that supports the weight of the floors above. It appears as a solid black wall on engineering drawings, and knocking it down would damage the entire building structure;
A non-load-bearing wall is a wall that does not support the weight of the floors above and serves only to separate one room from another. It appears as a hollow wall on engineering drawings, and whether or not this wall exists has little impact on the building structure itself.
Unit Parameters
Floor Height and Clear Height
Floor height usually refers to the distance from the floor surface of the lower level to the floor surface of the upper level. The floor height minus the thickness of the floor slab or the height of the structural layer is called the clear height. A residential floor height of 2.80 meters is recommended.
Interior Gross Floor Area
Interior gross floor area consists of three parts: the interior usable floor area, the interior wall area, and the interior balcony built area.
Gross Floor Area
A building's gross floor area is the sum of the floor areas of all levels measured along the outer perimeter line of the building's external walls (that is, the gross floor area is the horizontal area of the space enclosed by the building's external walls). It is an economic indicator expressing the construction scale of a building. The gross floor area includes the usable living area, the area occupied by walls and columns, stairway and corridor area, and other shared area.
Interior Usable Area
A residence's interior usable area is the sum of the net areas on each level of the building that are directly used for daily living. Calculating the interior usable area reflects a residence's usage situation fairly intuitively, but usable area is generally not used to calculate price in residential sales. Interior usable area = interior gross floor area − interior wall area.
Utilization Rate
Utilization rate is a customary reference indicator in the real estate market. It is the ratio of usable area to gross floor area, expressed as a percentage. The utilization rate reflects the size of a property's usable area and has a certain reference value.
Shared Area
The official term for shared area is common building area. It refers to the public building area that each unit (residence) is legally required to share. Ownership of the shared area is held jointly by all the building's homebuyers, who enjoy rights and bear responsibilities for it under applicable laws and regulations. It includes the dividing walls between units and public buildings, as well as half the horizontal projected area of the external walls (including gable walls). Independently used basements, carports, garages, guardrooms serving multiple buildings, management rooms, and basements used as civil air-defense works are not counted in the shared area.
Sellable-area Yield
Sellable-area yield refers to the percentage of a residence's net usable area relative to its sale area. Because the sale area of a residence is calculated on a per-building basis, the same unit type in different blocks may have a different sale area even though the usable area is identical.
Usable-area Ratio
Usable-area ratio refers to the ratio of the area at the household's disposal (that is, the interior gross floor area) to each household's built area (that is, the sale area).
Property-rights Floor Area
Property-rights floor area is the gross floor area of the property over which the rights holder legally owns the property. The property-rights floor area is registered and confirmed by the municipal or county (district) real estate authority. It is the only legally valid area and is the area registered on the property ownership certificate.