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In this history of the American open plan office, Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler, an Assistant Professor in the Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance at Purdue University, takes the reader on a jo...

This article explores the take-up and imaginaries of open-plan schooling during the 1970s, drawing on examples from Denmark and Victoria (Australia). As well as expressing new forms of classroom design and pedagogical praxis, open plan classrooms stood for reimagining schooling as a social institution and to possibilities for remaking student and teacher subjectivities. As a thoroughly transnational concept, the open-plan ethos was entwined with broader processes of social-cultural and political change and suffused with a critical optimism in its potential to inaugurate powerful transformations that extended beyond classrooms. We explore these aspects of open-plan schooling through Levitas´s (2013) typology of modes of utopia and Cooper´s (2013) concept of ‘everyday utopias’, arguing for closer attention to the decisive role of mundane practices in navigating what is ‘doable and viable’ in how open-plan classrooms were planned and enacted while also being attuned to a vision of another future. To analyse the interweaving of national, local and transnational processes in the making of open-plan ideas and practices, we draw upon Ingold´s (2011) notion of ‘meshwork’, proposing that local enactments of open-plan schools fold back into and contribute to building up different (transnational) conceptions of the open plan.

This paper analyses the move by an Australian university faculty to a new building featuring open plan and alternative workspaces. Through the lens of the theory of practice architectures, the paper examines how the new built spaces both enabled and constrained the professional learning practices of academics. Drawing on a case study of the transition, the paper explores the ways in which the move to the new building disrupted existing ecologies of practices around professional learning, and how academics subsequently sought to establish new ‘niches’ to foster professional learning practices. The six study participants, who are also the authors and represent a range of career stages, made efforts to establish conditions for professional learning practices and a praxis of ‘becoming an academic’. They did so by working with, around, and against the pre-figuring arrangements of the new built environment. The paper contributes to knowledge about how workspaces can disrupt and reconfigure the professional learning practices of educators. It addresses a gap in the literature on academics’ professional learning in relation to changes in physical workspaces, making visible the ways in which academic practices are shaped by and shape new arrangements for professional learning in response to the built environment. acceptedVersion

Sound masking systems are commonly employed in open-plan offices to achieve a controlled minimum level of background sound, in order to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio of unwanted incoming speech, thus making it less intelligible and distracting. Many previous studies have investigated the optimal level and spectrum of the masking sound in open-plan offices to balance speech privacy with acoustic comfort of the occupants, but most studies have conducted subjective testing in a laboratory setting instead of actual office environments. Recently, it has been hypothesized that self-generated sound levels from occupants alone in open-plan offices are sufficient to provide a minimum background sound level to achieve speech privacy (ISO 22955). This study, undertaken pre-COVID-19 and with high office-occupancy, aims to examine the relationship between the occupant-perceived speech privacy and different masking sound conditions (no masking, 42 dBA, and 47 dBA masking sound levels) in two operational open-plan offices located in Quebec, Canada. The employees were asked to fill out subjective questionnaires before and after each change in conditions, focusing on how the sound environment impacted their comfort and work performance during the study. Statistical results show that both sound masking sound conditions are significantly more satisfactory for occupants than without the masking sound. This has implications regarding whether office acoustic design guidance can rely on occupant-generated background sound levels to achieve acceptable acoustic conditions. © INTER-NOISE 2021 .All right reserved.

Electronic sound masking systems raise the ambient sound level in offices to a controlled minimum sound level in order to increase speech privacy and reduce distractions. Sound masking systems are calibrated to provide the most uniform sound field achievable, as a spatially non-uniform masking sound field could result in occupant perception and uneven speech privacy conditions. Tolerances for acceptable spatial uniformity vary between specifiers, and may be based on different evaluation methods using only a few discrete measurement points to represent an entire office space. However, the actual uniformity of a masking sound field across an office, and the parameters influencing it, has not been widely investigated. Thus, this study aims to investigate the masking sound uniformity in a typical open-plan office space using fine-grid measurements conforming to measurement method of ASTM E1573-18. Percentages of measured locations where the sound pressure levels were within specified tolerances (with increments of 0.5 dB) were calculated using the measured 1/3 octave band levels. The research also utilized geometric acoustical simulations to investigate how physical office parameters (number of loudspeakers, partition heights, ceiling absorption, and diffusion characteristics) affect the sound field uniformity of the sound masking system.

This study examined the effect of changes in visual elements on spatial comfort and work productivity in the aspect of indoor soundscape perception in the open-plan office (OPO) sound environment. Various OPO visual stimuli were simulated using computer software (Unity 3D engine) to change the visual environment by varying variables such as worker density, window ratio, green ratio, and ceiling height. An interactive virtual reality environment was implemented to perform a specific task while experiencing the audio-visual stimuli combining the general OPO noise stimulus and the simulated OPO visual stimulus. Subjective evaluation was performed on a total of 30 subjects to evaluate indoor soundscape quality and work performance for each stimulus. Based on the results of this study, a pleasant OPO design guideline was proposed. Keywords: Open-plan office, indoor soundscape, interactive VR test, spatial comfort

In this study, the general sound environment characteristics of open-plan office (OPO) were investigated, and just noticeable difference (JND) of sound pressure level of speech at a distance of 4 m (Lp,A,S,4m) suggested in ISO 3382-3 was suggested. First, in order to understand the sound environment characteristics of OPO, one minute sound sources recorded in 8 offices were collected and physical and psychological acoustic characteristics were analyzed. A total of 30 office workers were subject to subjective evaluation on 8 sound sources, and they were asked to respond to questionnaires related to annoyance, work satisfaction, and speech privacy. Next, to investigate the JND, two computer simulation models identical to those of the actual OPO were implemented, and sound sources each having six different Lp,A,S,4m values were generated through the change of the sound absorption coefficient of the interior finish. The JND of Lp,A,S,4m was presented by performing paired comparison for the same subjects. It is expected that the JND of Lp,A,S,4m proposed in this study can be used for the sound environment rating of OPO.

In open-plan offices, sound masking is often used to lower speech intelligibility and raise cognitive performance of the employees by reducing the irrelevant speech effect. Classic sound masking methods use speakers built into the ceiling of the office to increase the overall background noise level in the office and reduce speech intelligibility. However, the emergence of activity based offices is increasing the need for personalized sound masking methods that are no longer used globally in the office, but can be controlled by each employee individually depending on their activity and, for example, played back through headphones during activities that require particularly intense concentration. The playback of a classical sound-masking noise (e.g. a simple pink noise filtered by -5 dB per octave) via headphones is effective, but not pleasant. For this reason, a new sound-designed masking signal was developed in the present study, which consists of slowly fluctuating binaural harmonic components, as well as atmospheric sounds like water sounds and masking noise. A listening test with a cognitive task and a survey after each test condition showed that the developed signal had a similar positive effect on cognitive performance as a classical masking noise, but was rated as significantly more pleasant.

Even if the global health crisis is currently changing the work organisation in offices in the service industry, the problem of noise in open plan offices remains a major challenge with regard to occupational health and well-being. Since 2012, the French National Research and Safety Institute for the Prevention of Occupational Accidents and Diseases (INRS) has been carrying out acoustic surveys in French open-plan offices by measuring both some usual indicators of empty offices (Tr, D2S, Lp4m, rc, Lp) and also the ambient noise levels in activity. In addition, GABO questionnaires have been proposed to employees to assess their perception of the noise environment. So far, 50 open spaces were evaluated, with more or less data collected depending on the situation encountered. Approximately 1,400 employees have already answered the questionnaire. All of the sites visited cover the entire set of activities described by the ISO 22955 standard. An analysis of the links between the acoustic parameters and the perception of employees was carried out. This analysis provides additional information to the studies on the choice of acoustic descriptors and on the use of sound masking systems that aim to control background noise to reduce noise disturbance due to intelligible conversations.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019)-induced changes in the workplace present a timely opportunity for human resource management practitioners to consider and remediate the deleterious effects of noise, a commonly cited complaint of employees working in open-plan office (OPO) environments. While self-reports suggest that OPO noise is perceived as a stressor, there is little experimental research comprehensively investigating the effects of noise on employees in terms of their cognitive performance, physiological indicators of stress, and affect. Employing a simulated office setting, we compared the effects of a typical OPO auditory environment to a quieter private office auditory environment on a range of objective and subjective measures of well-being and performance. While OPO noise did not reduce immediate cognitive task performance compared to the quieter environment, it did reduce psychological well-being as evidenced by self-reports of mood, facial expressions of emotion, and physiological indicators of stress in the form of heartrate and skin conductivity. Our research highlights the importance of using a multimodal approach to assess the impact of workplace stressors such as noise. Such an approach will allow HR practitioners to make data-driven recommendations about the design and modification of workspaces to minimize negative effects and support employee well-being. Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2021.

The Mandya district of Karnataka, India, houses a unique Jain settlement constructed about 1000 years ago. Recent excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) indicate a high degree of engineering skills among the builders of this settlement. Adapting to heat-stresses in a region where the Monsoons often failed was and is still a matter of concern. Ingenious methods were adopted to modulate bioclimatic responses to maintain thermal comfort indices. The Aretippurians used composite building fabrics which modulated heat transfer to the interiors. Indeed, the thermal transmittances for these composite fabrics were low to moderate for both the temple complexes as well as the dormitories; these were 0.27 Wm-1K-1 and 0.23 Wm-1K-1, respectively. A site visit revealed that a unique and engineered micro-climate was also made to prevail on this hilltop settlement housing several hundred Jain settlers. A granite skirted reservoir was indeed the piece-de-resistance promoting hydraulic air-conditioning for eight months of the year around the premises with copious winds blowing over a large and exposed rain-fed reservoir. This fanned chilled air across the open plan temples, courtyards, and lived-in areas. This paper explores bioclimatic responses for around 120 residents to the prevailing indoor settings modulated by an engineered microclimate. This was possible because of the staggered layout, unique building forms, use of mixed building fabric, and carefully chosen glazing ratios which yielded salubrious settings. Clearly, this entailed a complex interplay between the intercepted solar insolation, structure-driven turbulence, and the transfer of heat across the original composite walls within and around the complex, requiring a systematic experimental as well as modelling study. The experimental part of the project involved the calculation of the thermal transmittivity across the walls made up of fired bricks, granite, and limestone, and the theoretical part involved the use of appropriate software to reconstruct air flow and heat distribution across floors, walls, and ceilings to proxy the original flow pattern yielding the comfortable PMV (predicted mean vote) and PET (physiological equivalent temperature) values within these premises. This exercise may well lead to further explorations on indoor comfort adaptations in tropical settings with the use of many edifying vernacular idioms in ancient settlements which prevail even in modern layouts.

Modified open-planning to define activity spaces is vital in preschool design. Children’s cognitive development is reflected in cognitive school readiness (SR). This study investigates the correlation between modified open-plan spaces and cognitive SR in Malaysian preschools. A prospective cohort study involving 378 children at 18 MOE preschools was conducted. Among all preschool physical design aspects (size, image, scale, circulation, facilities, indoor environment quality, safety, home bases, activity areas, and play yards), the quality of modified open-plan preschool spaces showed the strongest correlation with children cognitive SR (Pearson r=0.658, p=0.000). Findings are hoped to promote better planning in preschool designs. Keywords: Modified open-plan, cognitive development, preschool design, school readiness. eISSN 2514-751X © 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by E-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ajebs.v6i18.382

Research on the window operating behavior of offices is of great significance for reducing building energy consumption and improving indoor comfort. The open-plan office is a common office form that involves a large number of people and a complex staff composition. The window operating behaviors in open-plan offices are also random and various. This study took three open-plan offices with different situations (area, office type, staff composition, etc.) as an example, which provides a new perspective on how people behave differently when opening or closing windows. The window operating behaviors in two typical seasons (summer and transition seasons) were recorded and analyzed. The occupants’ schedules and influencing factors of window operating behavior were investigated by questionnaire surveys. In addition, the indoor environmental parameters, occupancy situation, and on-off statuses of windows and air conditioning were acquired through field measurements. Furthermore, the differences in window operating behaviors in the three open-plan offices were compared from the perspectives of influencing factors, duration of the window on-off statuses, and cause of window control actions, among others. In addition, Spearman Correlation Coefficient was used to analyze the ranks of the candidate motivations for window operating behaviors. The preliminary results show that influenced by the personnel composition, type of air conditioner and adjustable degree of windows, the window operating behaviors of different office buildings have larger discrepancies than that in the same building. However, there were some common characteristics in the window regulation behaviors of the three open-plan offices: they were generally influenced by the coupling of environmental factors, schedule factors, and equipment factors. This study reveals that when expand the research object from a single building to multiple buildings, more difficulties and challenges would be involved into behavior research.

BACKGROUND: Open plan or open space office has become increasingly popular but those who promote the concept seldom refer to health studies or workers’ perceptions of a change in office layout towards an open space arrangement. OBJECTIVE: To review the literature on open plan or open space office layouts in terms of facilities management (FM) with users’ perceptions in mind and to obtain opinions of users of open space offices for a better appreciation of the FM issues. METHODS: A literature search of research papers from 2007 in journals using the keywords “open plan office” and “open space office” plus “health”, first in the titles then in the text, was carried out. Thirty-two of those papers, accessible by the authors’ institutions, were consulted together with 5 other works in the Harvard Business Review. The review consulted but excluded papers and reports published or sponsored by commercial firms that were in favour of open space layouts. Case studies were conducted by face to face meetings in confidence with workers in the middle managements of twelve Hong Kong organisations known as friends to two of the authors. Problems as seen by staff are reported and discussed. RESULTS: The literature review reveals that apart from writing that promotes the use of an open plan office layout, a host of scientific works point to the problems of perceived dissatisfaction with such a layout, the nature of the dissatisfaction tending to depend on the actual design. Most workers interviewed disliked the new style open plan layouts, which points to the necessity of consulting workers when such changes are contemplated, as well as monitoring the results of the change once it is in place whether against workers’ wishes or with their support. There is a need for a number of facility arrangements in making a change to open plan that ensures that worker needs for proper lighting, privacy, and indoor health will be met. CONCLUSIONS: If the aim of a change to an open plan arrangement is to promote collegial communications in office, the study sheds light on the extent to which such arrangements may not in practice be suitable for achieving the aim. It follows that further, more specifically sociological studies of workers’ job satisfaction and emotional health in open plan office settings would be worth doing.

In diesem Beitrag werden Ergebnisse eines Berechnungsverfahrens zur Bewertung eines relativen Infektionsrisikos vorgestellt, mit dem eine (beliebige) Raumsituation mit einer Referenzsituation verglichen werden kann. Die Referenzsituation beschreibt einen Klassenraum mit maschineller Belüftung, ausgelegt nach dem heutigen Stand der Technik. Dabei wird vorausgesetzt, dass keine absolute Sicherheit vorliegt, jedoch eine nur sehr geringe Infektionswahrscheinlichkeit angenommen wird. Durch die Wahl der Raum- und Lüftungsparameter wird sichergestellt, dass sich in der Referenzsituation nach dem heutigen Stand des Wissens Infektionen über virentragende Aerosolpartikel nur beschränkt bis gar nicht ausbreiten können. Für Fälle, in denen keine Ausstattung mit meist zentral gesteuerten raumlufttechnischen Anlagen (RLT-Anlagen) vorliegt, was für die meisten Schulen gilt, wurde in Schulklassenräumen mit Lüftung über Fenster ebenfalls eine Referenzsituation mit einem relativen Infektionsrisiko von „1“ beschrieben und als Berechnungsbezug verwendet. Alle Berechnungen können sowohl stationär als auch instationär über eine Internetseite für eigene Räume und Szenarien durchgeführt werden (http://risico.eonerc.rwth-aachen.de/). Bei allen modellbasierten Betrachtungen bleiben andere Übertragungswege, wie Kontaktübertragung, das Nicht-Beachten allgemeiner Hygieneregeln oder direkte Kontakte, unberücksichtigt. Auch das generelle Tragen von besonders wirksamen Mund-Nasen-Bedeckungen (MNB) wie FFP2- oder OP-Masken mit CE-Zeichen nach DIN EN 14683, wie es sich in der politischen Diskussion zunehmend als Vorgabe abzeichnet, wird nicht vorausgesetzt.

Modified open-planning to define children’s spaces is important in preschool design. Cognitive school readiness (SR) is an objective of Malaysian preschools. This study investigates the correlation between modified open-plan spaces and cognitive SR in Malaysian preschools. A prospective cohort study involving 378 children at 18 Malaysian Ministry of Education (MOE) preschools was conducted. Compared to other preschool physical aspects (size, scale, circulation, facilities, indoor environment quality, safety, home bases, activity areas, and play yards), the quality of modified open-plan spaces showed the strongest correlation with children’s cognitive SR (Pearson’s r=0.658, p=0.000). Findings are hoped to promote better preschool designs. Keywords: Modified open-plan, preschool design, children education, school readiness eISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5i15.2374.

Sedentary behaviour within buildings has become a major public health issue particularly now that a large number of people are engaged in one form of office work or the other. In the midst of this, there is a paucity of research on how the design of office spaces can help discourage sedentary behaviour and reduce the health risks associated with it among office workers, especially in the developing countries. This study investigated sedentary behaviour among office workers in Enugu, Nigeria, with a view to improving understanding of the architectural design strategies for checking it. The data were sourced from a survey of 106 office workers in the study area and analysed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA and Duncan multiple comparison test. The findings show that the predominant office layouts identified were personalized and co-working layouts with workers spending around 93% of the total time at work sitting. Variations were observed in the level of physical activity of workers in the different office layouts with those in personal office layouts manifesting sedentary behaviour more than those in co-working and open-plan office layouts. The findings are incisive in noting that to discourage sedentary behaviour in offices and reduce the exposure of workers to sedentary related health risks, architects and engineers should pay adequate attention to co-working and open plan office layouts, centralised and shared office resources and the use of lobbies and corridors in linking main office spaces to ancillary facilities.

One of the core challenges in open-plan workspaces is to ensure a good level of concentration for the workers while performing their tasks. Hence, being able to infer concentration levels of workers will allow building designers, managers, and workers to estimate what effect different open-plan layouts will have and to find an optimal one. In this research, we present an ambient-physical system to investigate the concentration inference problem. Specifically, we deploy a series of pervasive sensors to capture various ambient and physical signals related to perceived concentration at work. The practicality of our system has been tested on two large open-plan workplaces with different designs and layouts. The empirical results highlight promising applications of pervasive sensing in occupational concentration inference, which can be adopted to enhance the capabilities of modern workplaces., Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures

COVID-19 and the large scale social and economic shock which it bought has already profoundly transformed organisational cultures Well known symbols of organisational life such as open plan workplaces filled with people wearing suits have been replaced by Perspex screens and personal protective equipment Rituals such as water cooler chat have been replaced with zoom calls The underlying values and assumptions of many organisations seem to have shifted from exploration and creativity towards safety and resilience This profound change represents a major challenge for managers They are asking themselves how they can build a company culture when everyone is working from home (Howard-Greenville, 2020) But it also represents a significant opportunity for researchers to investigate how such a large scale transition in society unsettles organisational culture and how those cultures might adapt

PurposeTo study effects of different sources of noise in office environments on perceived productivity, how different types of employees cope with different noise sources, and the perceived effect of different coping strategies on individual productivity.Design/methodology/approachData on coping behavior and noise perception was collected through a survey among 150 employees of 3 organizations with an office in the Netherlands. These were analyzed with X2-tests and the lift-ratio.FindingsWhen coping with noise, people are most inclined to either “Make even a greater effort” or “Discuss the noise problem with colleagues,” despite the expectation that this does not have a major positive effect on their productivity. Overall, approach coping strategies were chosen less often than the avoidance coping strategies. There are clear preferences for specific coping strategies when exposed to specific noise sources. Personal differences did not appear to relate to the perception of noise sources but did show differences in coping behavior as well.Originality/valueThis study adds insights about preferred coping strategies for specific noise sources, differences in these preferences related to specific personal characteristics, and how successful these strategies are perceived to be with regard to support of individual productivity.

Purpose From poor indoor environmental quality conditions to musculoskeletal discomfort, the interior design of workspaces has the potential to negatively affect human health. One of the key responses from industry has been the rise of health-related guidelines, certification and rating tools. Despite the rapid adoption of such tools by the Australian high-end corporate real estate, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence arising from such premises. This study aims to compare results from certified premises against other open-plan offices to understand differences arising from occupants’ satisfaction, perceived productivity and health. Design/methodology/approach A total of 1,121 post-occupancy evaluation (POE) surveys conducted in 9 offices were analyzed. All these premises hold a certification from the Green Building Council of Australia and two achieved a WELL rating. The analysis is performed in three parts: comparing WELL-certified (2 cases) and non-WELL certified (7 cases) offices along with comparison with a benchmark of 9,794 POE surveys from the BOSSA database, comparing activity-based working (ABW) (5 cases) and traditional (4 cases) offices along with comparison with BOSSA database and qualitative study of the similar design features in all 9 offices accompanied with an in-depth analysis of the health-related issues that might have occurred because of poor ergonomic design. For the first two parts, several t-tests are performed. Findings Highest scores for overall satisfaction, workability, perceived productivity and health were reported on WELL-rated premises. Offices incorporating active design principles outperformed others on workability, satisfaction with work area, collaboration, unwanted interruptions, perceived productivity and health. ABW environments outperformed the traditional offices on spatial comfort, thermal comfort, noise and privacy, personal control, comfort of furnishing, adjustability of the work area and space to collaborate. People using sit–stand workstations reported spending significantly less time seated and female workers were more prone to reporting pain over the past 12 months. The best-performing offices implemented active and biophilic design, prioritized overall ergonomics and different spaces designed to support a variety of work-related activities. Originality/value This research conducts a comparison between certified premises against other offices in terms of occupants’ satisfaction, perceived productivity and health. A qualitative analysis is also conducted to investigate personal and physical environmental aspects. The way of working (ABW or traditional), implementation of active design features, self-reported musculoskeletal discomfort and physical activity were also investigated. The study has taken a holistic approach to investigate many health-related physical, environmental and emotional aspects in certified workspaces.

The hybrid philosophy behind the mixed-mode (MM) strategy aims at achieving energy-efficient buildings and sustainable development. A performance-based open-plan office design facilitates the handling of multiple design parameters to identify optimal design solutions for effective MM offices. This research presents a method of open-plan office design for an improved natural ventilation potential and reduced supplementary heating/cooling loads in the early design stage within a Mediterranean climate. Different design variables including office size, layout aspect ratio, window orientation and fraction of window opening, with several factor levels, were studied. The design of experiment developed by the Taguchi method was applied to define the most informative simulation scenarios. Analysis of variance was utilised to indicate the effectiveness of each design parameter, while the signal-to-noise ratio approach identified the near-optimal level combinations that support informed decision-making. Suggested by the EN 15251:2007 standard, the hourly dynamic simulations were conducted using TAS Engineering. The measurement criteria included airflow rate, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, adaptive thermal comfort and air-conditioning (AC) loads. The calculated indicator was the number of hours in which a specific performance criterion is met during the occupancy period and the AC loads.

Designing naturally ventilated deep, open-plan offices could improve occupants’ thermal comfort and productivity and ensure energy reductions; however, this can be challenging when relying on facad...

Recently the modern focus of management, human resource, and health research were on office design and reducing or minimizing workplace problems and overall cost for office design. Thus, the concepts of open‐plan office design have been defined as providing at least a basic solution to many of these notable and current challenges in current working systems and organizations. In fact, open workspaces are often suggested since they offer more flexibility for dynamic organizational changes and fast technological growth in the modern working style. Today because of the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) there is a need to focus even on new open‐plan office designs to prevent and minimize health risks. The fact is the world needs to be ready for new viruses and or perhaps to unknown diseases in the future. The role of the workplace and the physical environment that affects employees’ perceptions about the work environment has always been challenging. In fact, managers and space designers need to pay careful attention to designing the work environment with a supportive workspace is a beneficial activity to promote individuals’ perceptions about the work environment, satisfaction, and outcome. In this condition, employees feel valued by the organization and management. Consequently, the role of environmental features in affecting employees’ perceptions about the workplace, environmental satisfaction, and overall outcome is remarkable and must be understood by managers and space designers.

Office lighting installations often inefficiently expend energy illuminating space that is unoccupied and/or already receiving adequate daylight. Illuminance and occupancy sensors can enable substa...

Today, the concept of open plan is more and more widely accepted that many companies have switched to open-plan offices. Their design is an issue in the scope of space layout planning. Although there are many professional architectural layout design software in the market, in the real life, office designers seldom use these tools because their license fees are usually expensive and using them to solve an open-plan office design is like using an overly powerful and expensive tool to fix a minor problem. Therefore, manual drafting through a trial and error process is most often used. This article attempts to propose a lightweight tool to automate open-plan office layout generation using a nested genetic algorithm optimization with two layers, where the inner layer algorithm is embedded in the outer one. The result is enhanced by a local search. The main objective is to maximize space utilization by maximizing the size of the open workspace. This approach is different from its precedents, in that the location search is conducted on a grid map rather than several pre-selected candidate locations. Consequently, the generated layout design presents a less rigid workstation arrangement, inviting a casual and unrestrictive work environment. The real potential of the approach is reflected in the productivity of test fits. Automating and simplifying the generation of layouts for test fits can tremendously decrease the amount of time and resources required to generate them. The experimental case study shows that the developed approach is powerful and effective, making it a totally automated process.

PurposeThis research provides a new perspective on the long-standing debate of open-plan versus cellular offices. It analyzes the effects of workplace layouts on organizational outputs such as innovation, efficiency and privacy by considering the physical space of an organization alongside its organizational structure. This socio-spatial approach draws on correspondence theory originating from space syntax to understand the potential for unplanned encounters between diverse groups of people.Design/methodology/approachThree different organizations are studied, two open-plan and one cellular office. Floor and seating plans are analyzed to calculate the degree of correspondence between the spatial and conceptual closeness of people. Demands for each organization are derived from semi-structured interviews and publicly available information.FindingsThe three studied organizations present very different degrees of openness toward others in ways that challenge conventional views of cellular and open-plan offices. In each case, the degree of correspondence matches the demands placed on the organization, and hence, providing a relatively good fit between the organization and interior environment.Research limitations/implicationsA larger sample of open-plan and cellular offices would be useful to consider in further research.Practical implicationsManagers can use the concept of correspondence to generate the appropriate degree of unplanned encounters between the right sets of people in order to achieve the best organization-environment fit.Originality/valueThe main innovation of this paper lies in its socio-spatial approach, considering physical space alongside managerial, organizational choices.

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate perceptions of leaders and team members on productivity, satisfaction and leader-led team dynamics within an activity-based, flexible environment compared to an open plan workplace. Design/methodology/approach This study uses cross-sectional (N = 1,275) and longitudinal survey data (N = 138) collected from three offices in Australia. Baseline responses were collected 3–12 months prior to the transition into a new environment and comparison responses were collected after at least three months of working in the new environment. Paired sample t-tests and linear regression were used. Findings Team members were more satisfied and felt more productive within the activity-based working (ABW) environment compared to the open plan workplace. Leaders were more satisfied and felt team productivity improved, yet individual productivity for leaders remained the same. Occupants felt the key drivers of productivity were team Interaction and decision-making. Research limitations/implications This study focused on one activity-based building based in Australia that was consciously designed for individual focus, team working and cross-team collaboration. This style of workplace may not be representative of all activity-based environments. Originality/value Most research into ABW has relied on cross-sectional data. This study also adopts a within group, longitudinal approach to directly compare the perceptions of the same individuals over time. Activity-based environments are changing the way we think of leaders and the way they encourage productivity. This study showed that despite relinquishing an office, leaders were more satisfied and equally productive within an activity-based environment. The study also showed that teams realise greater productivity by focussing on team interaction and effective decision-making.

The aim of this work is to analyse the thermal comfort and energy performance of a thermal heating chair for open plan office using field experiments, thermal comfort survey and energy simulations. A comprehensive review on the development of thermal chairs was carried out to highlight the present research gaps. The study developed a thermal chair prototype with controllable heating pads, incorporated into the back of the seat and back rest fabric. The field test was carried out in an office building in the UK during the winter. The study showed that the users set the thermal chair temperature between 29-45 °C. The field survey results of the thermal satisfaction survey showed that 19 out of 44 participants felt satisfied before using the device. While after using the thermal chair, the number of satisfied respondents increased to 34. The work also utilised Building Energy Simulation to further assess the thermal comfort and energy performance of the thermal chair. Three cases were simulated: non heated office chair with the zone thermostat maintained at 22 °C, non heated office chair with the zone thermostat at 16-20 °C and thermal chair with the zone thermostat at 16-20 °C.

Different configurations of the physical environment of office work are rapidly changing the way office workers behave and perform at work. In particular, organisations today are progressively accommodating their employees in open plan offices (OPOs). In this article, we focus on the OPO and discuss its future and implications for research and practice. Specifically, we build on recent advances in the field to propose that new OPO configurations will require new forms of work behaviour involving new processes and practices, and new research approaches. In addition, we discuss possible areas of work that OPO environments of the future might affect; for example, work design, interpersonal processes, noise and distractions, human resource management (HRM) practices and leadership. Along these lines, we suggest future research directions and make recommendations to navigate the intersection of organisational behaviour (OB) and OPO research and practice. JEL Classification: M19

Purpose This study aims to investigate the performance of open-plan office layouts and to identify occupants’ concerns in existing open-plan office layouts. Design/methodology/approach Workplace activity questionnaire (WAQ) was administered in the form of an online survey in March 2019, as part of a design briefing process for the expansion of the office facilities located in Bangalore, India, for a Fortune 100 software technology company. A total of 4,810 questionnaires were distributed and 3,877 responses were received (80.6% response rate). After that, 849 incomplete responses were eliminated from the analysis, resulting in a final sample size of 3,028. The questionnaire included 11 key activities conducted by the office workers and established the gap between the workers’ perceived importance and support from their existing facilities using a five-point Likert scale. Findings The findings of this study provide strong evidence that different physical environments influence the satisfaction of occupants. An improvement of the facilities, especially by enabling areas for quiet working, should be prioritized in relation to the other activities surveyed. Also, office workers perceived significantly different support levels for quiet working depending on their department, while there was no significant difference between the workers of different buildings. Research limitations/implications Individual demographic information was not collected because of the possibility of personal identification. There was also a lack of objective environmental measures, such as temperature and noise level. Thus, the quality of indoor environments was unknown. In this study, some respondents mentioned dissatisfaction with indoor environmental quality, including noise, temperature and air quality in their comments. Originality/value In the programming stage of a workplace design process, the WAQ survey tool has value because it renders important insight into the perception of a live workplace, which can then be used to determine priorities for a design effort. It clearly identifies the areas to focus on, ask questions about and develop improvements. Validating its reliability will enhance its credibility and confidence in its use. In addition, the large sample size provides statistical advantages in the data analysis, providing a higher likelihood to find a true positive of the findings of the study. Also, having a relatively high response rate provides an advantage of mitigating the risk of having non-response bias in the analysis.

This paper discusses application of a new methodology that facilitates fuel load surveys in buildings. The methodology consists of four steps comprising digital inventory, data organization, item matching through computer vision, and fuel load estimation, and is programmed into a digitized surveying application. The present paper applies the methodology to three office buildings and provides the results of surveyed fuel load density. A total office area of 1720 m2 was surveyed consisting of 34 closed offices and 161 cubicles within 12 large open plan office spaces. Compartment areas range from 8 m2 to 87 m2 for closed offices and 24 m2 to 345 m2 for open plan offices. The measured fuel load density for movable content had a mean of 1115 MJ/m2 with a standard deviation of 614 MJ/m2. When including the fixed content, the measured total fuel load density had a mean of 1486 MJ/m2 with a standard deviation of 726 MJ/m2. These values are considerably larger than values found in older surveys and most code provisions. The surveyed rooms had large quantities of paper, which amounted to 54% of the movable fuel load on average. Based on these results, and findings from other recent surveys, it is recommended to collect additional data. The work has established the foundation toward a fully automatized method, relying on an electronic form and a structured database of recorded information. A wide adoption of this method could populate an extensive fuel load database which can then be used to provide design guidelines for fuel load density in codes and standards, for application in performance-based design.