Candido, Chakraborty and Tjondronegoro investigated how office design influences user perceptions of their performance, health and comfort. The researchers found via a post-occupancy evaluation program (nearly 9,000 completed surveys) of offices in Australia that “For open-plan offices, the best-performing features for predicting perceived productivity were…amount of interruption, work area aesthetics, degree of adaptation of the work area, furnishing, overall amount of noise, cleanliness, and personal control over lighting. Furnishing, work area connection to outdoors, building aesthetics, sound privacy, and degree of adaptation of the work area were the critical predictors of health. As for the overall comfort of the work area,…key predictors [were] work area aesthetics, degree of adaptation of the work area, furnishing, overall air quality, cleanliness, and amount of interruption…[in] high-performance…offices…Pods of all sizes were…prominent…and had walls with textured elements and/or plants, promoting visual integration but some privacy at the same time…layouts privileged workers’ access to daylight and views.”
Christhina Candido, Prithwi Chakraborty, and Dian Tjondronegoro. 2019. “The Rise of Office Design in High-Performance, Open-Plan Environments.” Buildings, vol. 9, no. 4, 100, https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings9040100
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.