Space Meets Status: Designing Workplace Performance

by Vischer; Jacqueline

• ISBN13: 9780415701044
• ISBN10: 041570104X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-26
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book deals with the problems that are created when employers try to decrease the size of individual offices and workstations in order to increase work efficiency. Employees, who often regard their workspace as a "home from home", a retreat and a space that symbolizes their status and marks their territory feel threatened by this attempt to shrink "their" room. Jacqueline Vischer summarizes significant research findings on office-space design and behavior from fields such as environmental psychology, architecture and interior design, employing terms that are accessible and interesting to practicing designers as well as business managers. Examples and case studies illustrate how space is a corporate resource, and how companies can improve their design decisions. The book also examines the practical aspects of planning workspace for users. Worker productivity and stress levels are affected by lighting, ventilation, temperature, noise, and furniture layout. This book takes a new approach by showing howthe technical aspects of human comfort in terms of building systems does not always tally with users' perceptions and behavior. By understanding more about how these factors affect work performance, corporate managers and design professionals can plan, design and manage the layout of the work environment more effectively.

Table of Contents

Illustration credits	ix
Preface	xi
Foreword	xiii
Fritz Steele
1 Kingdom, castle, office: are we losing ground at work?	1	(23)
2 The organization–accommodation relationship: what is it about change?	24	(28)
3 Territoriality examined: being at home at work	52	(27)
4 Comfort and productivity: space as a tool for work	79	(28)
5 Environmental improvement: taking control	107	(24)
6 The workspace transformation imperative	131	(24)
Appendix The Building-In-Use Assessment Questionnaire	155	(4)
Bibliography	159	(5)
Index	164