Workplace couches have been getting a lot of attention. The office sofas suggested for break areas, conference zones, and elsewhere, and on display in one showroom and magazine spread after another, cover the full range of options that can even be imagined, from extremely restrained to effervescently rich. There is clearly a sofa for every aesthetic and site.
Sofas can be great additions to workplaces, but it’s important that their use be carefully considered.
Research supplies several reasons for using sofas in workspaces. For example, people seem to think more creatively when reclined, and we also get along better with others when stretched out. Couches also send the mental message of “home,” which is often mandated in the design brief.
There are practical reasons to bring in sofas. They can be places for people in the office all night to take a nap and with certain user personality profiles, they are a more space efficient way to provide seats than individual chairs.
User personality can complicate the use of couches –when people who would prefer not to sit on couches in workplace-like situations only have sofas as an option, they’ll use seats available inefficiently, perhaps sitting just one person per couch, for example – which can distort interpersonal distances during conversations, and lead to less than optimal space use. Extraverts revel in having couches as seating options, but they’re a lot less popular with introverts. Introverts feel much more comfortable sitting in individual chairs than they do on sofas, and when they have to sit on sofas because they’re the only options available, tension and suboptimal space use can ensue. When we’re stressed, because we’re worried that someone may come by and sit closer to us than we want or because we’re too far away from or too close to whomever we’re speaking with (distances desired vary by situation/discussion type), or for some other reason, part of our mental processing power is diverted from the task at hand, degrading our professional performance. So, depending on the personality profile of user groups, couches can be a good choice, or not.
Culture can have the same sort of influence on couch use as personality – in some nations and in some organizations, sharing a seating surface or appearing too relaxed at work is undesirable, for example.
Employees’ performance is enhanced when they have a comfortable amount of control over their physical environments. Couches are harder to reposition, etc., than individual chairs. But, the presence of sofas does not necessarily decimate performance if other opportunities for environmental control are present.
If you own couches, and only couches, all is not lost. First of all, many of the users of the work areas you’ve developed may be extraverts. If they’re not, any options you can dream up that may segment your couches into “pseudo-chairs” may improve the situation. For example, throw pillows that can find their way into stacks between seated people can help; so too can “over-couch”tables that are reminiscent of the over-bed tables found in most hospital rooms. You can develop many options that serve the same purposes as these examples.
Sofas do have a place in offices, but whenever they’re used, single seat options should also be available. Not everyone flourishes in a sofa-intense space.
Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections(www.researchdesignconnections.com).Research Design Connectionsreports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. 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.