According to Valkovics, a 100 per cent
open-plan office can "function very positively, promoting great communication and transparency within a company." But there is a caveat - if an
open-plan office is not managed properly in terms of operations and policy, it can work to alienate or discourage the staff, she said.
One research reveals that
open-plan offices are unfavorable for employees' wellbeing.
Dunn of Dyer Brown (Boston) wrote a piece for Fast Company, "An Architect's Defense of
Open-plan Offices," noting that the Harvard study was of "extreme" open plans, whereas those with a mix of open and closed areas (meeting rooms, phone booths, etc.) are far more successful.
The study found that employees working in
open-plan offices reported having difficulty to focus, and hence difficulty working effectively, ABC News reported.
The purpose of this study was to examine the flow patterns and draft risk in two typical office spaces: a single-person office room and an
open-plan office. Cooling and air distribution were implemented with active chilled beams.
Noisy office headache QWE'RE now in an
open-plan office and I'm finding it really hard to get used to the racket.
A new ground floor
open-plan office block has also been built.
The former HM Customs and Excise building has been completely refurbished and converted into superb single-storey
open-plan office units available between 1100 and 3000 sq ft and priced from pounds 195,000.
There will be five hi-tech
open-plan office suites for rent.
Almost as emotive as the
open-plan office is the "hot-desk," the idea being that all desks are equal.
The site could have been filled with artificially lit and air-conditioned floors like a huge
open-plan office, but to meet the accommodation requirements in a civilised way, giving people daylight, views, air and visible spatial progressions, demanded ingenious exploitation of every opportunity for transparency.
George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the
open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers.