Occupants’ satisfaction and perceived productivity in open-plan offices designed to support activity-based working: findings from different industry sectors

Designing for COVID-2x: Reflecting on Future-Proofing Human Habitation for the Inevitable Next Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2022 has revealed the vulnerability of modern society to a highly contagious airborne virus. Many spaces in the urban and built environment designed during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century are ill-suited to maintain the level of social distancing required to reduce the probability of virus transmission. Enclosed spaces—in particular, communal circulation spaces such as corridors, elevators and lobbies—have proven loci of transmission, together with circulating reticulated air and lack of proper ventilation. While urban planning needs to incorporate the lessons learnt during COVID-19 in order to future-proof our communities through the provision of well-designed greenspaces, the main burden will fall on architects, who will play an instrumental role in designing buildings that are fit-for purpose. This conceptual paper reviews the status quo and discusses a number of strategies to future-proof human habitation for the inevitable next pandemic.

Office relocation: changes in privacy fit, satisfaction and fatigue

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of an office move (and associated changes in settings, protocols and autonomy) on changes in privacy fit, privacy-related coping appraisal as well as changes in satisfaction and fatigue. The study builds on Altman’s (1975) privacy regulation model and the cognitive appraisal theory as a transactional model of stress.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected over two points of measurement from 61 office workers who moved from a standard open-plan office to an office that is activity based. The first questionnaire was distributed six weeks prior to the office move and the follow-up questionnaire approximately eight months after. With its longitudinal design, this study extends past research by demonstrating the changing nature of privacy fit and revealing predictors of change in privacy fit and coping appraisal.

Findings

Cross-lagged autoregression analysis of change confirmed suggested predictors such as increase in variety of settings and in adherence of others to protocols that positively influenced post-move privacy fit. Further, change in coping appraisal post move was predicted by an increase in perceived environmental and behavioural flexibility. Changes in privacy fit and appraisal were associated with increases in job and workplace satisfaction and decreases in emotional and mental work fatigue post move.

Originality/value

Results could inform physical workplace design as well as cultural interventions in organisations. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating the psychological process of privacy experience by using a transactional model of stress.