Recently there has been considerable activity in workplace design, with research and experimentation undertaken by academics, consultants, architects and suppliers of office equipment.

All these stakeholders are trying to understand how we can design and build smarter workplaces for the Digital Age.

A generic framework for workplace comfort (ie: needs) has been proposed by Dr Jacqueline Vischer at the University of Montreal (The Concept of Workplace Performance and Its Value to Managers, California Management Review, Vol 49, No. 2, Winter 2006). Her framework echoes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Above the Threshold of Habitability (which establishes minimum requirements for enabling people to work) she defines three levels of comfort.

Physical Comfort
Determined by standards on safety, hygiene, temperature, etc and influenced by the designer. In most modern buildings it is guaranteed and is increasingly aided by buildings automation technology, such as security and climate control.

Functional Comfort
This concerns the effectiveness of workspaces in helping people perform their work, and depends on lighting, furniture ergonomics, room design, etc. 

 

In our view, Functional Comfort must include the actual Functional Use of space, for example, lobby and reception area, Board Room, meeting room, workshop and brainstorm room, areas for collision with colleagues.

Thus, a reception area need not just be for check-in and check-out of visitors, since these can be automated, but could be transformed into a hospitality center, where the receptionist’s job changes from handing out, collecting and logging badges in a register to a concierge, serving visitors personally.

Psychological Comfort
Psychological Comfort is about linking “psychosocial aspects with environmental design and management of the workspace through territoriality, privacy, and control.”

Psychological Comfort, where we move from the influence of things to the influence of people in the workplace, is by definition a dynamic and messy state, subject to societal changes (social media, Gen X and Y employees, and beyond), technology changes (connectivity and mobility), workstyle changes (anywhere, any time, on the move), and workplace changes (flexibility, office on demand, co-working hubs).

For example, Vischer claims that studies have shown people consider negatively moving out of private offices into open workstations, because of reductions in privacy, acoustic ambience and confidentiality, and these have clear implications for workspace design. Yet, private offices inhibit chance encounters and informal exchanges. Many workspaces are deliberately being designed for people collision.

 

“If a building doesn’t encourage [collaboration], you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity. So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.” Steve Jobs

The design of the new Apple HQ, started with an understanding of how people should work: 

Figure 4 Apple HQ

This need for adaptability of workplace design to meet changing needs is made clear in Cisco’s Report, Office Design Case Study: How Cisco designed the collaborative connected workplace environment:

"The work environment we've been building is not necessarily what employees need.” Christine Ross, manager in the Workplace Effectiveness Team for Cisco Workplace Resources (WPR).

To date, most initiatives in workplace design have concentrated on physical implementation - Physical and Functional Comfort - through ergonomic furniture design, room layouts, creation of flexible spaces, architecture, interior design, and building automation.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] In future articles, we will discuss the role of technology in understanding and serving workplace needs. Based on hard, occupancy statistics and constructing evidence-based Use Cases, technology can create solutions that free up people to do their work wherever they are and not waste time on mundane processes like inviting and managing visitors, booking meeting rooms, organizing brainstorms, ordering AV equipment and catering, and so on. Just like turning receptionists into value-adding concierges and letting technology take care of security.

This article was authored by Vishal Mallick PhD & Raja Bose MSc, MBA from Performance Buildings AG, whose technology reduces consumption of resources in buildings and enables new services for users. The article was edited by and 1st published on Memoori.

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