Closing in on the open-plan office
IT was supposed to herald a new age of collaborative co-working — but is it all over for the open-plan office?
Increasingly, wall-free working spaces, still used by most businesses, are being supplanted by flexible layouts, with spaces for concentration as well as communication. It will be welcome news to anyone who has had to don headphones to block out their colleagues’ detailed discussion of last night’s TV, or endured the annual office flu season.
Last month, a British survey found that almost half of workers in open-plan offices were dissatisfied with noise levels, and showed increasing demand for individual control of temperature and lighting.
More and more, designers and employers are choosing layouts that combine the best of both worlds — the quietness of cubicle offices with the egalitarianism of open-plan.
“It’s about giving control back to people,” said Dr Matthew Davis, who studies the psychology of office design at Leeds University Business School.
And with the news that sedentary working is as bad for us as smoking, office design has never been so important.
Davis’s research has highlighted the poor hygiene and frequent distractions of open-plan offices. One report even found that the loss of productivity is so great it outweighs the money saved by putting everyone in the same room.
The design is still popular among some professions. A trading floor will always need the quick-fire communication offered by open-plan offices. But in the main, these kind of offices are falling out of vogue.
“We’re moving towards what is known as activity-based working in which people have a range of spaces in which they work,” said Jeremy Myerson, the Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design at the Royal College of Art in London.
Myerson said organisations were now seeking flexible offices, with private pods where workers can hunker down without interruption.
Such spaces also incorporate dedicated project rooms with screens and pin-up boards, less formal than a traditional meeting room, and less sedentary than a phalanx of desks.
Myerson said the need for contemplation was also important: “The big trend now is recognising that people need to tune out.” Google Zurich has its own aquarium, all soft carpeting and dappled blue light, where employees can lounge meditatively in bathtubs.
Not every workplace will install an aquarium, but designers are increasingly mindful of the occasional need to escape the hubbub.
A chair that walls its occupant on three sides is one of the newest offerings from Haworth, an office furniture retailer. The Windowseat, sleek and slanted, has a hint of a sports car whose doors open up instead of out.
Even more outlandish designs could soon be on the market. A chair with zip-up sides, dreamed up by a student at Sweden’s Lund University, turned heads at Milan Design Week in April. — © The Daily Telegraph, London
The big trend now is recognising that people need to tune out