Barnes, Wineman and Adler report on the use of an activity-based workplace by academic faculty members. They share that at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) “Mission Hall, a new office building primarily for desktop and clinical researchers and staff, was designed as an activity-based workplace (ABW), a type of open-space design…[in ABWs the] mix of shared and open workspaces is intended to improve efficiency and interaction…The Mission Hall experience provided a unique opportunity to understand the impact of an ABW design on faculty satisfaction, work effectiveness, well-being, and engagement. In a 2016 survey of faculty, one year after occupancy, respondents reported adverse changes in all four areas. The most common complaints involved noise exposure and lack of visual and auditory privacy. In response to these issues, faculty reported working at home or elsewhere more frequently, making collaboration more difficult. In 2018, UCSF retrofitted the building to create some private offices and adjusted its overall program to balance private office and open workspaces in future projects.” In reporting on lessons learned, Barnes and colleagues highlight the need to align workplace design with users’ functional requirements.
Janice Barnes, Jean Wineman, and Nancy Adler. “The Wave of the Future for Academic Health Centers?” Academic Medicine, in press, doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000002992
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.