Although the primary workplace is certainly the desk, we are less and less tied to it. It is now common to work across sites with people from a wide range of disciplines.
The multidisciplinary work, brainstorming and sharing ensures innovation and allows great ideas to grow. How can you support this? Through premises that promote communication between employees! Therefore, secondary work areas that serve as temporary workstations – so-called “communication areas” – should be included in the space and office planning.
The idea behind this is to “create internal (areas) within the company that also allow unplanned meetings. By allowing passers-by to spontaneously join a group meeting, for example, cross-team and cross-departmental exchange and the stimulation of new ideas are promoted. The prerequisite for this is to design the rooms in an open manner and, in addition to fixed units such as sofas and bar tables, also to provide flexibly arranged modules such as seating cubes “25. The communication areas have an open design, are accessible to all employees and are equally suitable for concentrated work and a coffee break. Another advantage is that no other colleague in the office is disturbed, and there is now an explicit space “for non-confidential work in small and large group settings “26 that is clearly differentiated from the individual workstations. The informal setting that is created creates a welcoming atmosphere that promotes exchange among co-workers and allows for knowledge sharing.
25 Book – Workplace of the future. Design Approaches and Good-Prac- tice Examples, Martin Klaffke (Springer Gabler 2016), p. 16
26 Book – Workplace of the future. Design Approaches and Good-Prac- tice Examples, Martin Klaffke (Springer Gabler 2016), p. 16
