Workers’ Perceptions of Collaborative Environments (07-23-10)

Hua and her colleagues comprehensively analyzed workplaces, identifying physical factors perceived by workers to support collaborative work or linked by workers to distractions from other people’s interactions. 

Three sorts of collaborative spaces were found:  “Team-related collaborative spaces include conference rooms in formal settings, open meeting areas in less formal settings, and team rooms in which certain work groups have priority for their meetings and group work.  Shared service areas in which large-volume copiers, printers, and other shared office equipment are located.  . . amenity-related spaces . . . in which conversations and collaborative work may take place include kitchens, coffee areas, and lounges.” 

Distances were calculated by determining “the shortest distance between two points along an orthogonal path that passes inside the shape (floor plate)” because this method “reflects the circulation routes in workplaces.” 

The researchers determined that floor plates in which meeting rooms are distributed around the core of the structure or at the core and in the corners of the floor plan “often have a shorter average distance from workstations to meeting space” and are perceived to be most supportive of collaborative work and least distracting to other workers.  The other categories of meeting space layouts recognized by the researchers included: no dedicated meeting spaces, one large meeting room, group meeting rooms, meeting rooms distributed around the floor to reflect worker density (i.e., more workers, more rooms), and distributed meeting rooms not positioned relative to occupant density. The service-related space arrangement that best supported collaboration and was least distracting had copiers placed in dedicated hubs and embedded in workstation neighborhoods. This arrangement beat out the other configures found: copiers along travel routes, randomly positioned copiers, and copiers in centralized, dedicated spaces.  Findings for the amenity-related spaces were not clear.  

The final section of the paper includes the design recommendation that meeting rooms be located near workstation zones for perceived support collaboration since  “Nearby meeting rooms enable occupants to use those spaces to carryout their collaborative work and casual interactions as needed.  Importantly, these meeting spaces need to have good acoustic enclosure to avoid distracting occupants in nearby workstations. . . The value of shared service and amenity areas in workplace collaboration lies largely in their ability to accommodate impromptu encounters among co-workers, which can initiate interactions for socialization, information exchange, work coordination, and creative development.”  Since interactions in these spaces can be distracting to people working nearby “carefully designed dedicated spaces for shared functions are preferred over the solution in which printers, copiers, and coffee pots clutter circulation aisles or occupy vacant workstations . . .more floor space dedicated to service-related places for casual interaction is also preferred because it increases the possibility of moving noise-generating activities away from workstations.”

Hua and her co-researchers collected a great deal of information that supports these conclusions, so workplace designers can feel comfortable utilizing them.

Ying Hua, Vivian Loftness, Robert Kraut, and Kevin Powell.  2010.  “Workplace Collaborative Space Layout Typology and Occupant Perception of Collaboration Environment.”  Environment and Planning B:  Planning and Design, vol. 37, pp. 429-448.