OPEN PLAN OFFICE DESIGN
An open plan office space seems to be new trend in office design. The concept of an open office speaks to the values and ideologies of an organization, hence establishment such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have implemented open office to enhance employee efficiency and attract top prospect to their organization. The idea of an open plan office is to increase collaboration amongst employees, create transparency, easy communication between workers. Also an open office design allows for a flexible fit out, or an adaptive space, and most importantly reduces operational cost of the organization.
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But most of today’s open plan offices are cramped spaces with employees sitting right next to each other. An increase in distractions, and uncontrolled interruption, hence employees are unable to focus on work for a long period of time and as result production reduces.
The noise pollution is also a huge issue with today’s open plan office design. Majority of the employees have headphones on all day. There’s an increase health factor as well as illness are easily transmitted resulting in increased sick days used by employees.
Yet, open plan office spaces are still a thing! Why?
What makes for a good open plan office? Let’s take a look at the SC Johnson Wax Administration building by Frank Lloyd Wright in Racine, Wisconsin from 1939.
The Johnson Wax Administration building was the breakthrough that launched Frank Lloyd Wright “second career”
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that architecture should reflect the intangible needs of its occupants.
Wright’s idea of the relationship of the individual to the larger society was fundamentally different. It was characterized by progress of the individual to realize their fullest potential. This building contained a large open room for office workers, ringed by a balcony. Open plan office space 128 x 28 feet with 20 feet high ceiling supported by dendriform columns that flare out into a large circle to support Pyrex glass tubing allowing daylight to pour down to the workspace bellow. The space feels like working out in nature amongst tall trees with wide canopies with sunlight filtering down through the leafs and branches.
The columns are the most extraordinary feature of the building; starting from a nine inch diameter base set in a steel cup shaped footing at the floor, and tapering out to produce an 18.5 diameter disc at the top. Each spans the 18 inch gap.
The essential aspect of the great workroom consist in the relationship between the columns and light. The Wright design future reinforces the curved profile of the columns, glass tubing, walls and the workroom horizontal layers of the space. Also allowing enough space between workstations, the space doesn’t feel clustered like today's open plan office spaces.
The devil is in the details.
The space Frank made comfortable by introducing air condition into this workroom through ceiling plenums while the floor is a concrete slab containing heated pipes. The work stations desk and chair was specifically designed for clerically proposed and spaced appropriately to give each employee the working space and privacy, Also the clerically desk and chair, top brim of the column, and the translucent tube pipes use as windows have similarity in design.
Sources
Frank Lloyd Wright: An illustrated Biography
By Alexander O. Boulton
Rizzoli International Publication Inc 1993
Frank Lloyd Wright Architect Phaidon
By Robert Mc Carter
Phaidon Press Limited