Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Designing for What Happens

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | August 15th, 2016

We’ve all been to lots of meetings. Most of us way, way too many. And we’d all agree, I think, that the ones that have gone best are the sessions when the spaces we’re in make whatever we’re up to easier to accomplish. But why do we have meetings at all? In 2011, Oseland, Marmot, Swaffer and Ceneda set out to answer just that question. They found that there are five reasons why we meet. We gather to share information among ourselves, make decisions, generate ideas, resolve problems (particularly personnel related ones), and to socialize. The places where we work must help us with each of these five activities, in comparable conditions, with the exceptions noted below. “Comparable conditions” means that the areas where people will share and decide and generate and resolve and socialize are all equally pleasant places to be. No relegating socializing to the basement, or only …