Types

The types of the Data Fusion Layer model, what each one may contain, the properties it carries, and the sub-types available for zones, rooms and assets.

Every object in the Data Fusion Layer carries one or more types. The type states what the object is, a floor, a meeting room, a desk, a door. The type also determines where the object may sit in the hierarchy, which properties it carries, and how a question about "the meeting rooms on the second floor" resolves to a set of data points.

Types come from a tailored subset of the Brick Schema ontology, narrowed down to the entities that occur in facility management and extended where a building operator needs distinctions that Brick leaves open.

An object usually carries several types at once, because the specific type implies the general one. A room typed Standard Meeting Room is also a Meeting Room and a Room, so it answers a question about meeting rooms and a question about rooms, without anyone maintaining those groupings by hand.

The four families

Every type belongs to one of four families:

Family	Types	What it represents
Region	Region	An organizational grouping of sites, by geography, ownership, or operating structure.
Space	Site, Building, Level, Zone, Room	Physical space, from a campus down to a single room.
Asset	Asset	A physical thing inside a space: equipment, furniture, or a structural element.
Point	Point	A measurable aspect of a space or an asset, bound to one data key of one device.

What each type may contain

The hierarchy is not free-form. Each type accepts a fixed set of child types:

Type	May contain
Region	Region, Site
Site	Building, Asset, Point
Building	Level, Zone, Asset, Point
Level	Zone, Room, Asset, Point
Zone	Room, Asset, Point
Room	Asset, Point
Asset	Point
Point	nothing, a point is always a leaf

Read downwards, that gives the familiar chain of region, site, building, level, zone, room, asset, point. Read across, it gives the shortcuts that make real buildings modelable:

• Region is the only type that nests into itself. A country region can hold city regions, which hold the sites. Every other type appears once in the chain.

• Zones may attach to a building directly, not only to a level, which is what lets a zone span several floors. A department spread over three floors is one zone on the building.

• Assets do not need a room. A photovoltaic panel belongs to the building, a fire extinguisher to a level, a charging station to a site. Anything from a site downwards can carry assets.

• Points may attach at any level of the hierarchy except to a region. A people counter at the main entrance is a point on the building, without a room ever being modeled for the lobby.

Region
└── Region
    └── Site
        └── Building
            ├── Level
            │   ├── Zone
            │   │   └── Room
            │   └── Room
            └── Zone

    every space can additionally carry Assets,
    and every space and asset can carry Points

Model only what you need to ask questions about. A model that mirrors the floor plan down to the last cupboard is not more useful than one that stops at the rooms and desks that carry sensors, and it is considerably more work to keep current.

Categories and sub-types

Some types are categories rather than choices. Zone, Room and Asset are never assigned directly: an object under a level is not "a room", it is a meeting room, a toilet, or a workshop. The same applies one level further down, where Meeting Room, Personal Hygiene, Lounge, Food Handling Room, Equipment, Furniture, Architectural Asset, Barrier Asset, Desk and Focus Room are categories that group the types you actually pick.

The rest are assignable as they stand, and any sub-types they have are optional refinements. Level is a type in its own right, and Roof Level or Warehouse Level narrow it where the distinction matters. The same holds for Toilet, Shower Room, Locker Room, Loading Bay, Conference Room, Open Office and Parking Space.

Assigning the most specific type that fits costs nothing and keeps the general ones available, since they come with it. Where no sub-type is right, the category's assignable parent is the honest choice, and a refinement can be added later.

Point is the exception in both directions. It has no sub-types and is not picked from a list at all: a point comes into being when you bind a data key of a device to an object.

Properties

Common properties

Three properties recur across nearly every type:

Property	Type	Required	Constraints	What it is
name	string	yes	1 to 255 characters	How the object appears in the model, in dashboards, and in answers from Genio. This is what "meeting room Zurich" matches against, so it is worth naming consistently.
objectId	string	no	up to 255 characters	Your own identifier for the object, as it is known in the system the model was built from, such as a CAFM, BIM, or floor plan tool. Regions have no objectId.
description	string	no	up to 1024 characters, 255 for buildings and levels	Free text.

Region

Property	Type	Required	Constraints
name	string	yes	1 to 255
description	string	no	up to 1024

Site

Property	Type	Required	Constraints
name	string	yes	1 to 255
objectId	string	no	up to 255
description	string	no	up to 1024
address	string	no	up to 255
workspaceId	string	yes	a 16 character akenza ID

workspaceId binds the site to a workspace. That is the link between the semantic model and the devices: the points below a site resolve against the devices in that workspace.

Building

Property	Type	Required	Constraints
name	string	yes	1 to 255
objectId	string	no	up to 255
description	string	no	up to 255
address	string	yes	up to 255
capacity	integer	no	1 or greater

Level

Property	Type	Required	Constraints
name	string	yes	1 to 255
objectId	string	no	up to 255
description	string	no	up to 255
levelNumber	integer	yes	-10 to 100
area	number	no	0.1 or greater
capacity	integer	no	1 or greater

levelNumber is what orders the levels of a building, and it is signed, so basements are negative. The name stays free for whatever the building itself calls that floor.

Zone and Room

Zones and rooms carry the same properties.

Property	Type	Required	Constraints
name	string	yes	1 to 255
objectId	string	no	up to 255
description	string	no	up to 1024
area	number	no	0.1 or greater
capacity	integer	no	1 or greater

capacity is the number of people or workplaces the space is designed for, and area its floor area. They are what turn a count of occupied desks into a utilization figure, so a space whose occupancy you report on is worth filling in. See Occupancy monitoring for how capacity is used.

Asset

Property	Type	Required	Constraints
name	string	yes	1 to 255
objectId	string	no	up to 255
description	string	no	up to 1024

Point

Property	Type	Required	Constraints
akenzaDeviceId	string	yes	a 16 character akenza ID
topic	string	yes	at least 2 characters
dataKey	string	yes	at least 1 character

A point is one value, not one device. A multi-sensor reporting temperature, humidity, and CO₂ becomes three points, and they need not sit on the same object: the CO₂ reading can describe the room while a door contact on the same device describes the door.

The three properties are the binding itself. akenzaDeviceId names the device, topic and dataKey name the value inside its samples, exactly as they appear in the message logs on the device detail page. See Querying device data for how topics and data keys are structured.

Sub-type reference

Level

Sub-type	What it is
Mezzanine Level	An intermediate floor, open to the floor below or covering only part of it.
Manufacturing Level	A level given over to production, fabrication, or assembly.
Workshop Level	A level for craftsmanship, maintenance, prototyping, or repair work.
Warehouse Level	A level for storage, staging, inventory, and distribution.
Roof Level	The uppermost level, often carrying outdoor plant, solar, or environmental sensors.

Zone

Sub-type	What it is
Open Office	A broad, shared office workspace. Contains Working Places, individual desks or cubicles.
Open Space	A broad, shared space for work or leisure.
Event Space	A flexible area for gatherings, conferences, or social functions.
Parking Space	A demarcated area for one vehicle. Refined by EV Parking Space, which typically also carries a charger.
Outdoor Seating	An exterior area for seating and gathering.
Auditorium	A large venue for an audience, lectures, or performances.
Forum	An open gathering space for assembly, events, or informal collaboration.
Garden	An indoor or outdoor space for planting, green space, or recreation.
Informal Collaboration Space	An open area for spontaneous teamwork, with no reservation required.
Living Zone	A domestic-style area for relaxation, socializing, or flexible work.
Mindfulness Zone	An area for mental well-being, meditation, and stress reduction.
Visitor Waiting Area	A space near an entrance or reception where guests wait.
Quiet Space	A low-noise environment for silent tasks, reading, or rest.
Innovation Hub	A multi-disciplinary space for research, experimentation, and prototyping.
Restaurant	Commercial food service, covering both preparation and dining.
Café	Casual food and beverage consumption, with a counter, barista station, or vending.
Fitness Zone	Physical exercise and conditioning, including the wet rooms that serve it.

Room

Rooms carry the largest set of sub-types. The categories in bold are not assignable themselves, you pick one of the types below them.

Category / type	Types you can assign
Meeting Room	Standard Meeting Room, Phone Booth, Customer Meeting Room, Huddle Room, Collaboration Room, Meeting Pod, Meeting Point, Workshop Room, Team Room, Board Room, and under the Focus Room category, Focus Box and Standard Focus Room
Personal Hygiene	Toilet, and below it Washroom with WC F, WC M, WC Unisex and WC Disabled; Shower Room with Shower Room F, Shower Room M and Shower Room Disabled; Sauna
Lounge	Service Lounge, Lounge Area, Visitor Lounge
Food Handling Room	Cafeteria, Dining Room, Cooking Room, Pantry, Walk-in Fridge, Kitchenette
Conference Room	Assignable, refined by Video Conference Room
Locker Room	Assignable, refined by Locker Room F, Locker Room M, Locker Room Disabled
Loading Bay	Assignable, refined by Loading & Receiving Room
Office	A workspace for professional, administrative, or commercial activity
Workshop	Manual labor, fabrication, maintenance, or repair
Service Room	Mechanical plant, maintenance equipment, or storage
Electricity Room	Breaker panels and power distribution
Quiet Room	Deep focus, meditation, or mental restoration
Exercise Room	Fitness training and workout equipment
First Aid Room	Treatment of minor injuries, or holding until transfer
Multipurpose Room	Reconfigurable for meetings, training, events, or collaboration
Retail Room	Display and sale of goods and services
Warehouse	Storage, staging, and management of inventory or bulk materials
Disposition	Storage, handling, removal, or recycling of waste and decommissioned assets
Other Workplace	A functional area that fits none of the standard workspace classifications

Asset

Category	Types you can assign
Equipment	Fridge, Fire Extinguisher, AED (Automated External Defibrillator), Photovoltaic Panel, Waste Meter
Furniture	Chair, Art, Other Workplace, and under the Desk category, Standard Desk, Hot Desk, Allocated Desk, Quiet Desk
Architectural Asset	Under the Barrier Asset category, Door

Several asset types exist because of the sensor that usually accompanies them. A fire extinguisher, an AED, or a piece of art carries a presence sensor that raises an alert when the item is removed. A door carries a reed contact that counts openings or reports its current state. A desk or chair carries an occupancy sensor.