What happens when 21 people volunteer to take part in a live workplace experiment? An experiment that tests what factors govern the choices people will make when asked to find a work setting for a collaborative team task? A couple of weeks ago we embarked on what was in itself an experimental formula: a kind…
We spend a lot of time observing and thinking about office design and the effect it has on people’s behaviour, so what better working environment to study than the ever growing and fashionable phenomenon that is co-working space? Our interest was particularly piqued by a visit we made during last September’s Open House London weekend.…
When was the last time you completed a piece of work where you needed no input at all from anyone else? That probably depends on the exact nature of your work and role, but for most of us in knowledge-intensive work, the answer is likely to be ‘a while ago’. Increasing demands on people to not just do…
We are not called brainybirdz for nothing. We love birds. So when many months ago we found a tweet (!) from @biotweeps citing a 2012 study into the foraging behaviour of blue tits, great tits and marsh tits in woodlands in Oxfordshire, we were naturally interested, especially when we saw that the researcher scientists involved…
What if, you could simply give an area of the office the name ‘conversation space’, and then people would automatically go there to talk to each other? After all a Lounge is where we …well, lounge, and a library is where we go to look at books. I know what you are going to say.…
The need for more collaboration within organisations seems to have become something of a mantra. And the office design industry is busy trying to capitalise on that need, by offering new and exciting ‘flexible’, ‘open’ office layouts that will help to break down entrenched organisational barriers and enable greater knowledge sharing. If you know us…
