You Can Now Classify Every Space Across as Many Dimensions as Your Project Needs

Snaptrude now lets you create custom tag categories and assign values to spaces individually or in bulk. Department is one tag category among many, so you can also organize by phase, building wing, sub-department, specialty, or any system your team actually uses. Tags stay consistent across Design Mode, Program Mode, and the Area Panel.

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Why does program organization always end up in a side spreadsheet?

Most design tools give you one hierarchy. Usually that's Department. You classify your program by department, and the tool reflects that everywhere.

The problem is that real projects don't sit in one hierarchy.

A hospital has departments, but it also has phases, specialties, building wings, and acuity levels. A school has departments, but it also has age groups, schedule blocks, and security zones. A mixed-use development has departments inside each typology, plus phases, plus building blocks, plus tenant assignments.

When the tool only gives you one slot, the rest of that information has to live somewhere else. Which is why almost every team we've talked to ends up running a side spreadsheet. They list every space, paste in the area values from the model, and add columns for phase, building, zone, sub-department, anything else the project actually needs.

That side spreadsheet drifts from the model the moment something changes. You move a space, the model updates, the spreadsheet doesn't. You add a new room, you remember to add it to the spreadsheet sometimes. By week three of design changes, the two are out of sync and nobody fully trusts either one.

This is the kind of friction we've been working to remove across Snaptrude. Small workflow problems that quietly add hours of manual reconciliation to every project.

Key Takeaway: Real projects need to classify spaces across multiple dimensions. Tools that force you into one hierarchy push the rest of your organization into a spreadsheet that goes stale fast.

What do custom space tags actually do?

You can now create as many tag categories as your project needs. Department is the default category, but you can add Phase, Building, Wing, Specialty, Acuity, Tenant, Zone, anything that matters for how your team thinks about the project.

Each space gets one tag per category. So a single space can be tagged as Inpatient (Department), Phase 2 (Phase), Tower B (Building), and ICU (Acuity), all at once. Tags can be assigned individually or in bulk through the Properties Panel and Program Mode columns.

A few things make this practical day to day:

Tags are consistent across the whole project. The same tag categories show up in Design Mode, Program Mode, and the Area Panel. You define them once. The tag you set on a space is the tag you see everywhere.

The Area Panel reflects them directly. You can sort by any tag category, Story, or Label, and filter by any tag or type. If you want to see only Phase 2 spaces in Tower B, that's a filter, not a separate view or a separate file.

Program Mode shows them as columns. Tag categories appear as custom columns in Program Mode, alongside a new Area Type column that shows Net, Gross, or Excluded for every space. Department grouping still runs through the Department tag, which keeps existing program workflows intact.

Area logic is now explicit. Every space has an Area Type you can see and edit directly: Net, Gross, or Excluded. Space types give you sensible defaults, but your overrides always take priority. Planning blocks, rooms, and non-program areas can sit in the same model without your area numbers getting confused.

Key Takeaway: Tags let you organize program along as many dimensions as your project actually has, with the same tag values reflected across Design Mode, Program Mode, and the Area Panel.

Why does multi-dimensional classification matter for how teams actually work?

The reason this update matters isn't the number of categories you can create. It's what becomes possible once your model carries the full picture of how the project is organized.

Phasing is a good example. On a phased project, you need to know which spaces belong to Phase 1 versus Phase 2 versus future expansion. Without tags, that lives in a spreadsheet column. With tags, every space carries its phase as a property of the space itself. You can filter the Area Panel to see only Phase 1 totals. You can run Program Mode views by phase. The numbers you report are the numbers your model says, not what someone last wrote in a separate file.

Building wings work the same way. On a hospital tower with three connected buildings, every space sits in some department, but it also sits in some building. Tagging by both means you can answer "what's the total area of the Inpatient department in Tower B" without filtering twice or copying data into a sheet.

Sub-departments and specialties are where this matters most for complex typologies. A teaching hospital has Inpatient as a department, but inside that you might have Cardiac, Oncology, Neurology. A school has Academics, but inside that you might have Lower School, Middle School, Upper School. With a single hierarchy, you have to pick a level and stick with it. With tags, both layers exist at the same time and you can group either way.

For firm leaders, this changes how reliable your program data feels. When the model is the source of truth across every dimension that matters, you stop second-guessing your area takeoffs. You stop running parallel spreadsheets. You stop building review meetings around the question of which version of the data is current.

Key Takeaway: When every classification lives on the space itself, your model becomes the single source of truth across every dimension your team cares about.

Where does this fit in real project workflows?

Tags are most useful on projects where program organization has more than one valid axis. That covers most large work: hospitals, mixed-use, schools, multi-phase masterplans, anything with structure beyond a flat department list.

A few specific moments where tags earn their keep:

Phased work. Set a Phase tag on every space. Filter the Area Panel by phase to track totals. Hand off Phase 1 area calculations to consultants without untangling them from later phases.

Multi-building campuses. Tag spaces by Building. Combine that with the Department tag to answer cross-cutting questions like "what's the total lab area across all three research buildings."

Specialty or sub-department breakdowns. Use a Specialty or Sub-Department tag. Group Program Mode by Specialty when you need that view, group by Department when you need the standard breakdown. Same data, different cuts.

Mixed program types in one model. Tag spaces by Program Type (Office, Retail, Residential, Hospitality). Pull totals by program type for feasibility studies or floor area summaries.

Net, Gross, and Excluded as explicit values. Use Excluded for circulation, mechanical, or other non-program areas you want in the model but out of your program totals. Track them separately in the Area Panel without having them pollute department totals.

For firms evaluating architecture design software, this is one of those controls that's invisible until you don't have it. Most tools push organization into spreadsheets. Once your model carries it directly, going back feels like keeping two sources of truth in sync by hand.

Key Takeaway: Tags pay off most on phased projects, multi-building campuses, and complex typologies where program structure has more than one axis.

A small change to the model, a big change to how you trust it

Custom space tags isn't a headline AI feature. It's a structural change to how Snaptrude treats classification.

The point of this update goes beyond adding categories. The side spreadsheet you've been running for years stops being necessary. Phases, buildings, specialties, zones, all of it sits on the spaces themselves, where they belong, and stays in sync as the design evolves.

This is part of the broader direction we've been taking with program and area logic in Snaptrude. The model should carry every piece of information your team actually uses to organize the project. Once it does, your area takeoffs, your program reports, and your filtered views all line up by default.

A note on what's still in progress: tags currently apply to Spaces only. You can read tags in Program Mode, but editing, creating, or assigning tags from Program Mode isn't supported yet. Advanced tag analytics and tag-based color modes are on the roadmap for the next release.

Custom space tags are live in Snaptrude. Try them on your next project.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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