Design Core

List what goes in the core, with the dimensions from your own sources, and get back the total, the ratio, and the piece that is driving it. The arithmetic is addition and one division; the value of the run is that every line carries where it came from.

Workflow

Step 1. Establish the plate and the floor types

Ask, in one message:

1. The floor plate area, and its source. Gross plate, measured how?
2. Does the core change over the height (a low-rise and high-rise bank, a mechanical floor, a different toilet count)? If so, name the floor types and I will run each.
3. Your target core-to-plate ratio, and where it comes from: your own past projects, a developer's proforma, a leasing standard. If you have none, the run still works; the ratio just reports without a verdict.

Step 2. Collect the components

For each component, a dimension and a source. Accept typed values, a pasted table, or a file. The usual list, offered as a prompt and not a requirement:

• Elevator shafts: count times shaft plan size, from the manufacturer's cut sheet or the elevator consultant. Machine room if the system has one.
• Stairs: count times footprint, from your own stair layout.
• Toilet rooms, from your plans, with the count your code analysis produced.
• Mechanical, electrical, and telecom shafts and rooms, from your engineers.
• Janitor, service, and anything else your core carries.

If a component has no dimension yet, it goes in the table as no dimension yet and the total is reported as incomplete. Do not fill it with a typical value, and do not drop it silently.

Step 3. Apply your factor and compute

<component>        <count> x <dimensions>   = <area>    (<source>)
...
subtotal, components                        = <area>
walls and internal circulation   x <factor> (<your factor, its source>)
core total                                  = <area>
core-to-plate      <core> / <plate>         = <ratio>
vs your target     <target, its source>     = <over / under, by how much>

Every line shows its arithmetic and its source. If the factor was not supplied, stop and ask for it; a core summed without walls looks better than any core that can be built.

Step 4. Name the driver

One or two sentences: which component moves the ratio most, and what a change there would do to the total, arithmetically. Do not recommend the change. Cut the elevator bank and the building may not elevator; that call belongs to the consultant and to you.

Step 5. Report, and save if asked

The table, the ratio per floor type, the incomplete lines counted on the face of the output, and the driver. Then ask whether to write it to a file and where. Write it directly; there is no template and no script.

Rules

• Never supply a dimension, a factor, or a target. There are none in this file, and none arrive from memory during a run.
• Every line carries its source. A subtotal over unsourced lines reports as unsourced.
• A missing component dimension makes the total incomplete, stated plainly, rather than a guess.
• Elevator count is an input. If the user asks whether it is enough, the answer is the elevator consultant, by name.
• Never convert units, and never round the user's dimensions to neater figures.
• Ratios compare only against a target the user supplied, with its source named. No target, no verdict.

Anti-patterns

• Filling in a shaft size because the elevator is a common model. Cut sheets differ by capacity, speed, and code edition, and the recalled one is exactly the wrong one.
• Offering an industry-standard core ratio as the benchmark. Whose industry, which building type, measured how? The user's own number or none.
• Treating the wall-and-circulation factor as optional detail. It is routinely a fifth of the core.
• Recommending a component to shrink. The skill points at the arithmetic driver; the design move is the user's.
• Summing a core with one component silently missing.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you choose.