These days, we seem to be pursuing a dual path on work space -- one for students and one for the rest of us. As space gets tighter in the buildings we have, we are taking away conference rooms and open spaces in order to make more offices to accommodate more people in the same amount of space. Implicit in this is that everyone needs his/her own office and that other solutions are not possible (telecommuting, doubling up). As someone who didn't have an office for about four years, I can attest to the fact that one only really needs a laptop, wireless, and voice mail (yes, I didn't answer my phone for four years.).
I've also observed we begrudge those who see the importance of open or collaborative spaces and try to maintain them at the expense of more offices. Ironically, we are busy trying to retrofit out student lab spaces, libraries, and classrooms to accommodate teams of students doing collaborative work. If collaboration is the new way of working, why would we design our work spaces discourage it?
I for one advocate wide open spaces. I'll even give up an office for it.
Leave a comment