How do people typically model a volume of space which is reserved for something such as the movement of a piece of equipment or the clearance required for servicing a piece or equipment etc? Is this an example of what IfcSpatialZone RESERVATION is intended to do? How do i link it to the object that …

I would use IfcVirtualElement with PredefinedType = CLEARANCE for this in IFC4.3. To link it to the related equipment, IfcRelAssignsToProduct is a reasonable option because the clearance volume is not a physical part of the equipment, but a virtual object assigned to or associated with that product.…

I knew there must be something somewhere to do this - many thanks!

@marko.ripatti So what was your preferred solution? The virtual element solution suggested above works for me although i havent yet found a simple way to achieve the IfcRelAssignsToProduct relationship with our authoring software (Revit).

@DanPeel Maintenance/clearance zones are modeled in our products (in certain way) and those zones are then exported to IFC as clearance geometry ( standards.buildingsmart.org/IFC/RELEASE/IFC4/ADD2_TC1/HTML/link/clearance-geometry.htm ) with our own (MagiCAD) IFC Exporter . Just to check: are you cod…

Revit IFC Export with families set up to export as spatial reservations. Your approach seems to achieve the same end result as that suggested by Yuefeng? I agree that it would be nice for some sort of consensus on how to do this though.

Yes, consensus would be nice. @angel.velez @pasi.paasiala what you say, should we make a official proposal how to deal with clearance/maintenance zones? Please see Support for HVAC maintenence zone export - Developers - buildingSMART Forums

spatial reservation for equipment movement

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marko.ripatti June 30, 2026, 5:36am 4

Hi, there is also other opportunity to model maintenance/clearance zone. Please see Support for HVAC maintenence zone export - Developers - buildingSMART Forums

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spatial reservation for equipment movement

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