Spatial and social configurations in offices

The strength of space syntax is the potential to describe the interplay between spatial configuration and social behaviour; however, there are some important differences between the space syntax found on the urban level and on the building level. In studies of offices, we have found that integration values do not explain the pattern of movements and the positions of interaction. The average interaction frequency is just the same for workstations in different positions and in different office concepts despite the fact that many “spontaneous” interactions occur when people pass workstations. Although there are some spatial explanations for this homogeneity (the studied offices are shallow systems both when it comes to cellular and to open plan offices), interaction follows organisational borders in an open plan office as these borders act as if they were walls: almost no interaction crosses the department borders in spite of some units being spatially well-integrated. Obviously, the spatial influence in these offices is weak when it comes to encouraging spontaneous interaction across organisational borders. In fact, much of the so-called spontaneous interaction is programmed, even if it is not scheduled. Clearly, visibility is important for social behaviour; we found that office workers have most frequent interaction with nearby and visible co-workers. To some extent, this is an effect of placing people according to the organisation scheme, but still - as we know that work processes in offices are largely formed by context, so this “use” of the neighbours is also an effect of seeing each other every day. We also noted that openness is more problematic when it comes to sound. Many people are disturbed by talking in open plan offices and one conclusion is that work dominated by “long questions” suffers from this conversational overhearing, while work dominated by “short questions” has the possibility to balance the negative effects. There is a need both for new office design and for management strategies that combine spatial and social configurations in a more conscious way. The findings presented in this paper are from studies of seven offices/companies with a total of about 1500 office workers.