Office Design

8 Key excerpts on "Office Design"

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  eBook - ePub

  e-Business and Workplace Redesign

  • Paul Jackson, Reima Suomi, Paul Jackson, Reima Suomi(Authors)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Nowadays, the physical place of the company is changing in size, dimension, features and location. Crucial to these changes has been the contribution of network communications, including road and train networks, as well as IT. However, the design of office buildings has often failed to meet the needs of the organisations that use them. The speculative nature of much office development has encouraged design focused on maximising economy and flexibility of space. In addition, even when a particular client has been directly involved, the design is often focused on corporate image expressed in reception spaces and façades. Finally, the very shape and design of the office building has been heavily restricted by planning legislation. The introduction of new technologies in the office has changed the expectations of users relating to new processes and tasks. The idea of an individual workplace within the office, or of one seat per person, has been challenged (Worthington 1997).

  While the new technologies have provided new work possibilities, realizing these must take careful consideration of how individual and team areas are created, with the main objective being to support social contact between individuals. The concepts involved in the new ways of working—which are premised on the exploitation of new technology and encourage work to be carried out when and where it is most suitable—have been combined with ideas about simplification that permit flexibility and cost control (Eley and Marmot 1995). As Eley points out, these principles are reflected in a number of common terms used today in space planning: for example: ‘quiet rooms’, ‘war rooms’, ‘project rooms’, ‘team areas’, ‘group bases’, ‘work lounges’ and so on. All apply to spaces used by people for different tasks at different times and in different combinations.

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  Facilities Planning and Design

  An introduction for Facility Planners, Facility Project Managers and Facility Managers

  • Jonathan Lian(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • WSPC

    (Publisher)

  ART 3

  Workplace Planning and Design Passage contains an image

  CHAPTER 9

  Workplace Planning and Design

  In this chapter, you will learn about the following: 1.Key trends that are driving change in organisations and the workplace 2.Changes in workspaces, meeting spaces, support spaces and technology 3.Essential #9 – Considerations that must be taken in the planning and design of offices 4.Challenges in implementing a new office concept 5.Coworking spaces

  Essential #9

  Understand the considerations in the planning and design of workplaces.

  The previous chapters considered planning and design at large scales (e.g. building scale and campus scale). This chapter considers planning and design at a smaller scale, specifically office spaces. This chapter also seeks to help the reader consider planning and design in the context of a particular type of facility — offices.

  Many people spend at least forty hours a week at their workplace. This accounts for a substantial portion of their time. Hence, it is important that their workplaces are well-planned and well-designed. Another reason is that the layout and design of the workplace can affect a worker’s productivity and job satisfaction.

  This chapter will focus on workers in an office setting as this is the situation that is most typical. The layout and design of an office is determined by the organisation whose employees occupy the office. The organisation’s activities also drive the layout and design of the office.

  9.1Key trends driving change in organisations and the workplace

  According to the Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG) (2017) there are three key trends that are driving change in organisations and the nature of work:

  •Globalisation and increased competition. •The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution. •The increasing pace of change resulting from increased competition and the technology revolution.

  Globalisation has brought out enhanced competition which has led to companies needing to become leaner. Organisations strive to be ‘lean’ in a drive to become more competitive, agile and focused on the customer.

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  Organizational Behaviour and the Physical Environment

  • Oluremi B. Ayoko, Neal M Ashkanasy, Oluremi B. Ayoko, Neal M Ashkanasy(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Regarding the impact of Office Design on work processes and performance, this influences the individual employee. However, this aspect of Office Design operates and shows at a group level. The office environment and the work process should match – meaning that the office layout, to improve productivity, must complement the work process of organization, for example by an office layout that facilitates the workflow (see reviews in Al Horr et al., 2016; Haynes, 2008). In fact, there is even an Office Design – lean Office Design – that is designed with this purpose only (Bodin Danielsson, 2013).

  The office layout affects behaviour in the workplace in different ways. Thus, an office layout focused on the process of the organization can support this in various ways. At a group level, for example, by focusing on teamwork and interaction, visual contact and meetings between different groups and departments can be enabled. At an individual level, the balance between distraction and stimulation in the design of the plan layout is the focus, as this is crucial for the individual’s productivity in terms of, for example, writing and calculating (e.g. Keus van de Poll & Sörqvist, 2016; Maher & von Hippel, 2005). This is important as distraction has the most negative impact on employees’ perceived productivity, while at the same time in many cases interaction is the most positive (Haynes, 2008), and both are largely determined by the plan layout of the office. Work assignments and needs related to these vary depending on the job and occupational position; people also have different personalities and needs related to these. Nevertheless, research has found that in most cases, to work efficiently, office employees need an office that enables distraction-free work, but also informal interaction with colleagues (Heerwagen, Kampschroer, Powell, & Loftness, 2004). In line with this, a case study of two ‘innovative’ offices, designed to enhance creativity, found that spaces for communication and interaction, but also for privacy, are crucial (Haner, 2005).

  Architectural elements and design features

  There are some indications architectural design regarding aesthetics and colour schemes in indoor environments could affect performance and productivity (Mahnke, 1996; Özturk, Yilmazer, & Ural, 2012). Foremost, physical features such as spatial diversity within the office have positive influences on this (Ehler et al., in Haner, 2005). This includes for example a division into different zones in terms of activities and needs related to these, for example a division into an action zone, an interaction zone and a retreat zone (see Bauer, Haner & Rieck, 2001, in Haner, 2005). Of interest here is that accessibility of a mixture of office types within the office appears to correlate with employees’ rating of ‘motivation’, ‘attractiveness of the work environment’, ‘wellbeing’ and rating of ‘office performance’ (Ehler et al., in Haner, 2005). With regard to creativity, we know that a supportive social–organization work environment and positive mood motivate creative behaviour and facilitate the generation of more ideas (Amabile et al., 1996; Davis, 2009; Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987). It has been hypothesized that the physical environment can enhance creativity (Amabile et al., 1996, p. 249), and there have also been some attempts to identify design features that enhance this. In a study by Dul and Ceylan (2010), office employees were rated on elements in their social–organizational and physical work environment, and whether this correlated with employees’ self-rated creative performance. They found that high rates of creative work environment correlated with high rates of creative performance.

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  Body and Organization

  • John Hassard, Ruth Holliday, Hugh Willmott, John Hassard, Ruth Holliday, Hugh Willmott(Authors)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  There are many ways of translating management principles into features of spatial organization and interior design, some of which are pointed out in greater detail below. Design may, for example, achieve a sense of flattened hierarchies and team spirit; it may stress a system of single combatants or represent an open-door policy and enforce corporate culture as a means of symbolic integration. Space is not just a physical framework and setting for other means and techniques of managerial control. It is a control device in its own right and should be exposed to critical analysis just as much as any other control technique. In the fol lowing, I want to ask, on the one hand, how different modes of Bodies in a landscape 1 67 organization are expressed in Office Design and, on the other hand, how concepts of Office Design are consumed and incorporated into organization. For a socio�semlotic view on office space Hence, I shall argue for a socio-semiotic view on this field of research which has primarily been the domain of ergonomists and architects. Ergonomics seeks to design the workplace to take account of human needs, but it generally takes little or no account of social structures and economic forces that give rise to the demand to adapt man to machine, equipment and environment. Even considering the efforts that have been made to reverse the formula and adapt the workplace to physiological or psychological needs, ergonomics generally lacks critical reflection of the relations of power and domination in society which underlie the generation of knowledge on risk or safety, or which render certain health issues legitimate (cf. Sundstrom, 1986). A sociological view also contributes to architecture's idea of space. Of course, architectural literature encompasses critical and highly reflective accounts of causes and effects of spatial constructs. Yet practitioners are normally and necessarily preoccupied with issues of function.

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  Dignity and the Organization

  • Monika Kostera, Michael Pirson, Monika Kostera, Michael Pirson(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  It is interesting to note that in an overview of the effects of the physical environment of the office in the contemporary organization, Davis et al. (2011) talk mostly about prescriptive approaches rather than empirical findings in their section on the form of the evolving office. Hodson and Roscigno (2004) observe that there is no single organizational or job-level practice that would bring an optimal balance between the organization’s objec- 200 R. Nikolaeva and S. Dello Russo tives and employee wellbeing, but rather we have to look for certain con- figurations of practices that can achieve both objectives. Thus, we situate the design of the physical workplace environment as an overlooked factor that can contribute to the optimal balance between organizational and employee interests. Office design has been primarily based on fashions among designers, developers and managers. 2 In fact, there is a predominant view among researchers that the Tayloristic approach to office space design is more based on ideology rather than empirical evidence (Knight and Haslam 2010). Even in new attempts to re-design the workplace according to the demands of the twenty-first century office, design decisions are fre- quently based on managers’ perceptions and no research or employee input. The common factors driving changes in contemporary offices are cost reductions, technological advances, and the prevalence of knowl- edge workers’ diverse set of tasks (Davis et al. 2011). The modification of open-plan offices is an example of a trend that has to a large extent ignored employee preferences and dignity. While there is mounting evi- dence that the primary rationale for open-plan offices is cost savings and surveillance (Barnes 2007; Davis et al. 2011), there is a popular narrative of “coolness”, “creativity enhancement”, and transparency that has been propagated by star designers, sketchy research and, lately, the visibility of “cool” companies like Apple, Google, 3 and Facebook.

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  Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics

  • Gavriel Salvendy, Waldemar Karwowski, Gavriel Salvendy, Waldemar Karwowski(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  A recent layout philosophy is the “flexible office”, where the furniture and the equipment are designed to be easily movable in order to be able to modify the workstation arrangement depending on the num-ber of people present at the office, as well as the number of running projects or work schemes (Brunnberg, 2000). Finally, in order to respond to the current needs for flexibility in the orga-nization and structure of enterprises, as well as reduce costs, a new trend in office management is the “free address office” or “non-territorial office”, where workers do not have their own workstation but use the workstation they find free whenever at the office. In addition, an increasing number of companies are adopting agile working policies, replacing rows of desktop per-sonal computers with Wi-Fi shared desks, and a range of spaces for informal breakouts, formal meetings and quiet concentration (Gillen, 2019). Examples of this trend is the specification of col-laboration areas to prompt better working across teams, concen-tration areas for quiet, focused tasks, learning zones and devel-opment facilities for small group working or self-study, with bookable spaces. Finally, there are amenity spaces for refresh-ment, reflection, relaxing, and engaging with colleagues. Each type of layout has its strengths and weaknesses. Indi-vidual offices offer increased privacy and better control of environmental conditions, fitting to the particular preferences and needs of their users. However, they are more expensive both in terms of construction and cost of use, not easily modifiable to match changing organizational needs, and render cooperation and supervision difficult. Open-plan offices offer flexibility in changing organizational needs, and facilitate cooperation between co-workers but tend to suffer from environmental annoyances, such as noise and suboptimum climatic conditions as well as lack of privacy (see De Croon et al., 2005, for a review).

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  Handbook of Engineering Design

  • Roy D Cullum(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Butterworth-Heinemann

    (Publisher)

  (6) According to Parkinson, work and staff expand to fill the space available; and when an enter-prise occupies the vast, specially built premises for which it has been waiting all these years it is already in decline. The design office is sometimes split into two: one part, open plan, is for detailing, issuing modifica-tions, etc. The other part is divided into small offices for development or project teams who do the creat-ive work, if necessary to a degree of detail that will enable prototype manufacture to take place. Alternatively, all design, at whatever level, can take place in one area; or designers may join with other engineers in feasibility studies or tender pre-paration. The half-and-half system works well in a company making a few products where other influences en-sure cohesion among the designers. Otherwise, morale in the detail office can be very low. Centralisation may be ideal in theory, but is difficult to arrange when ready access is required by liaison engineers and advisory groups, and by dev-elopment laboratories, printing departments, etc. A compromise can be valuable, especially when the objective is abundantly clear. The best arrangements are difficult to find. Systems engineers need to be near computers, elec-tronic circuit designers need a laboratory, and so on. Probably there is no ideal arrangement, flexibility is important. Therefore it is highly desirable to have easily removable partitions between offices. It is also important to ensure that there is ade-quate lighting and heating, and that the appropriate equipment is provided for each designer. In this respect every design manager should be aware of the appropriate lighting glare index and minimum value of illumination (IES Code Recommendations). 15.4 Organisation structures All organisations are in a continuous state of change. Very often these changes are imperceptible, at other times they are reminiscent of revolutions.

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  New Technologies at Work

  People, Screens and Social Virtuality

  • Christina Garsten, Helena Wulff(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  place – or both. Crucially, the outcome depends on the details of the spatial, technological and social interventions. In the case of JFC’s office, technologies were involved in both of the design strategies; they fostered local interactions as well as flexibility and mobile flows. Yet, due to the specifics of the design and use of technologies in the office, the results tended to weaken the more collaborative and team-based social forms and strengthen the flows of people and individualized forms. In JFC’s Office Design, technology privileged transience and anonymity, re-established individual resource handling, and reintroduced individual ownership. Yet, it could have been otherwise.

  Conclusion

  Interwoven in this chapter were two interconnected lines of inquiry: a close analysis of a particular Office Design that included a reflection on the dialectic tension between individualized and social ways of working, and an exploration of the pivotal role of technology and spatial principles for forms of social organization at work.

  The central topic was the description and analysis of the self-experiment of innovative Office Designers who developed for themselves what they considered a showcase state-of-the-art office. I presented this experiment as an informative case of organizational engineering, where spatial and technological design strategies together with certain behavioural rules were meant to enable, encourage, or even enforce specific work styles, social structures and organizational characteristics. I argued that there were not one but two distinct organizational visions embedded in the design. Built around principles of proximity, open space and informal encounters, one vision aimed at increasing communication, teamwork, collective ways of organizing work, and a communal and social climate. The other design vision deployed principles of non-territoriality and multiple work settings together with an elaborate system of mobile technologies to achieve flexible work patterns, mobile ways of working and a more fluid, dynamic and responsive organization. I argued that in practice these two visions could be in conflict, where the mobile and flexible design efforts worked against some of the goals of a more communicative and collaborative organization.

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