Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Creative Workplace Alchemies: Individual Workspaces and Collaboration Hotspots

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Architecture and Interaction

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

  • 2179 Accesses

Abstract

Much like creative knowledge work environments, studio-based design education environments are changing rapidly to include: multidisciplinary teams, information technology, geographically distributed teams, and flexible workspaces. Factors such as, architectural space design, furniture choices, technical infrastructure features, acoustics, socio-cultural norms, and privacy and visibility of wall-sized displays support or hinder workers in creative environments. In this chapter, I describe a case study of a graduate design studio at the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. The studio has four connected spaces: individual workspaces, collaborative spaces, a kitchen and social café area, and a distance-learning classroom. In earlier work, researchers evaluated student satisfaction through fieldwork, pre-post occupancy surveys, and interviews. In this chapter, I analyze a design studio environment through time-lapse photography, Space Syntax analysis, and semi-structured interviews. This research identifies locations where people and teams work and the factors that support collaboration, such as space configuration, wall-sized display affordances, furniture configurations, and support infrastructures. Teams worked more often in locations that were less visible from other locations, provided greater laptop screen and display privacy, had whiteboards, and electrical outlets. Students did individual work throughout the studio-suite regardless of the function assigned to the spaces.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Allen TJ (1977) Managing the flow of technology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen TJ, Henn G (2007) The organization and architecture of innovation: managing the flow of technology. Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Appleton J (1975) The experience of landscape. Wiley, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker RG (1968) Ecological psychology. Stanford University Press, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Batty M (2001) Exploring isovist fields: space and shape in architectural and urban morphology. Environ Plan B 28(1):123–150

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Benedikt ML (1979) To take hold of space: isovists and isovists fields. Environ Plan B 6:47–65

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bier H, De Jong A, Van Der Hoorn G, Brouwers N, Heule M, Van Maaren H (2008, Jan) Prototypes for automated architectural 3D-layout. In: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on virtual systems and multimedia, Springer, Berlin, pp 203–214

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown T, Kātz B (2009) Change by design: how design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. Harper Business, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Choi YK (1999) The morphology of exploration and encounter in museum layouts. Environ Plan B: Plan Des 26(2):241–250

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalton N, Marshall P, Dalton R (2013) Extending architectural theories of space syntax to understand the effect of environment on the salience of situated displays. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM international symposium on pervasive displays, ACM, Mountain View, pp 73–78

    Google Scholar 

  • Doorley S, Witthoft S (2012) Make space: how to set the stage for creative collaboration. Wiley, Hoboken

    Google Scholar 

  • Festinger L, Schacter S, Back K (1950) Social pressures in informal groups: a study of human factors in housing. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto

    Google Scholar 

  • Flemming U, Baykan CA, Coyne RF, Fox MS (1992) Hierarchical generate-and-test vs constraint-directed search. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 817–838

    Google Scholar 

  • Georgoulas C, Linner T, Bock T (2014) Towards a vision controlled robotic home environment. Autom Constr 39:106–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin C, Goodwin MH (1996) Seeing as a situated activity: formulating planes. In: Engeström Y, Middleton D (eds) Cognition and communication at work. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 61–95

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Goffman E (1963) Behavior in public places; notes on the social organization of gatherings. Free Press of Glencoe, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Green KE, Walker ID, Gugerty LJ, Witte JC, Houayek H, Kwoka M, Johnson J, Teja K Kuntzi N (2009) AWE: a robotic wall and reconfigurable desk supporting working life in a digital society. In: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2009 (IROS 2009), pp 406–407

    Google Scholar 

  • Haq S (2003) Investigating the syntax line: configurational properties and cognitive correlates. Environ Plan B: Plan Des 30(6):841–863

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hatch MJ (1987) Physical barriers, task characteristics, and interaction activity in research and develop-ment firms. Adm Sci Q 32:387–399

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hawkey K, Kellar M, Reilly D, Whalen T, Inkpen KM (2005) The proximity factor: impact of distance on co-located collaboration. In: Proceedings of GROUP ’05. ACM Press, New York, pp 31–40

    Google Scholar 

  • Hazlewood WR, Dalton N, Marshall P, Rogers Y, Hertrich S (2010) Bricolage and consultation: addressing new design challenges when building large-scale installations. In: Proceedings of 8th ACM conference on designing interactive systems, Aarhus, Denmark, pp 380–389

    Google Scholar 

  • Hillier B (1996) Space is the machine: a configurational theory of architecture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hillier B, Hanson J (1984) The social logic of space. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hillier B, Penn A (1991) Visible colleges: structure and randomness in the place of discovery. Sci Context 4(01):23–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hillier B, Hanson J, Peponis J (1984) What do we mean by building function? In: Powell JA, Cooper I, Lera S (eds) Designing for building utilisation. E & F.N. Spon Ltd, London, pp 61–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Hillier B, Penn A, Hanson J, Grajewski T, Xu J (1993) Natural movement: or, configuration and attraction in urban pedestrian movement. Environ Plan B: Plan Des 20(1):29–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang EM (2007) When does the public look at public displays? In Companion proceedings of the conference on Ubiquitous Computing, UbiComp 2007, Innsbruck, Austria

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang EM, Koster A, Borcher J (2008) Overcoming assumptions and uncovering practices: when does the public really look at public displays?. In: Lecture notes in computer science, vol 5013, Pervasive 2008, Springer Link, Sydney, pp 228–243

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaarlela-Tuomaala A, Helenius R, Keskinen E, Hongisto V (2009) Effects of acoustic environment on work in private office rooms and open-plan offices – longitudinal study during relocation. Ergonomics 52(11):1423–1444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koppel MT, Bailly G, Müller J, Walter R (2012) Chained displays: configurations of public displays can be used to influence actor-, audience-, and passer-by behavior. In: Proceedings of CHI 2012. ACM, Austin, pp 317–326

    Google Scholar 

  • Koch A, Schewennsen K, Dutton T, Smith D (2002) Redesign of studio culture: a report of the AIAS studio culture taskforce. American Institute of Architecture Students, INC, Washington, DC. Demystified. Architectural Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraut RE, Fish R, Root R, Chalfonte B (1990) Informal communication in organizations: form, function, and technology. In: Oskamp S, Spacapan S (eds) Human reactions to technology: Claremont symposium on applied social psychology. Sage, Beverly Hills, pp 145–199

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson JS, Teasley S, Covi L, Olson G (2002) The (currently) unique advantages of collocated work. Distributed work, 113–135

    Google Scholar 

  • Peponis J, Zimring C (1996) Designing friendly hospital layouts. The contributions of space-syntax. J Healthc Des 8:109–116

    Google Scholar 

  • Peponis J, Ross C, Rashid M (1997) The structure of urban space, movement and co-presence: the case of Atlanta. Geoforum 28(3):341–358

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rashid M, Wineman J, Zimring C (2009) Space, behavior, and environmental perception in open-plan offices: a prospective study. Environ Plan B: Plan and Des 36(3):432–449

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rogers Y, Rodden T (2003) Configuring spaces and surfaces to support collaborative interactions. In: O’Hara K, Perry M, Churchill E, Russell D (eds) Public and situated displays. Kluwer Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 45–79

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt K, Bannon L (1992) Taking CSCW seriously: supporting articulation work. J Comput Supported Coop Work 1(1):7–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt C, Muller J, Bailly G (2013) Screenfinity: extending the perception area of content on very large public displays. In: Proceedings of CHI2013. ACM, Paris, pp 1719–1728

    Google Scholar 

  • Scoppa MD, Peponis J (2015) Distributed attraction: the effects of street network connectivity upon the distribution of retail frontage in the City of Buenos Aires. Environ Plan B: Plan Des 42(2):354–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scupelli P, Hanington B (2014) An evidence-based design approach for function, usability, emotion, and pleasure in studio redesign. In: Lim Y-K, Niedderer K, Redström J, Stolterman E, Valtonen A (eds) Proceedings of DRS 2014: design’s big debates. Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University, Umeå

    Google Scholar 

  • Scupelli P, Kiesler S, Fussell SR (2007) Using isovist views to study placement of large displays in natural settings. In: CHI’07, ACM, San Jose, pp 2645–2650

    Google Scholar 

  • Scupelli P, Xiao Y, Fussell SR, Kiesler S, Gross MD (2010, April) Supporting coordination in surgical suites: physical aspects of common information spaces. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, ACM, pp 1777–1786

    Google Scholar 

  • Sommer R (1969) Personal space: the behavioral basis of design. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs

    Google Scholar 

  • Sproewitz A, Billard A, Dillenbourg P, Ijspeert AJ (2009) Roombots-mechanical design of self-reconfiguring modular robots for adaptive furniture. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2009 (ICRA’09), 4259–4264

    Google Scholar 

  • Su R, Bailey B (2005) Towards guidelines for positioning large displays in interactive workspaces. In: Proceedings of INTERACT 2005, LNCS 3585, 337–349

    Google Scholar 

  • Suchman L (1997) Centers of coordination: a case and some themes. In: Resnick L, Saljo R, Pontecorvo C (eds) Discourse, tools, and reasoning: essays on situated cognition. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner A (2001) Depthmap: a program to perform visibility graph analysis. In: Proceedings of the 3rd international space syntax symposium, Atlanta

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner A, Doxa M, O’sullivan D, Penn A (2001) From isovists to visibility graphs: a methodology for the analysis of architectural space. Environ Plan B 28(1):103–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Underhill P (1999) Why we buy: the science of shopping. Simon & Schuster, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Varoudis T, Dalton S, Alexiou K, Zamenopoulos T (2011) Ambient displays: influencing movement pat-terns. In: CHI’11. ACM, Vancouver, pp 1225–1230

    Google Scholar 

  • Wigdor D, Shen C, Forlines C, Balakrishnan R (2006) Effects of display position and control space orientation on user preference and performance. In: Proceedings of CHI2006, ACM Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Whittaker S, Schwarz H (1999) Meetings of the board: the impact of scheduling medium on long term group coordination in software development. Comput Supported Coop Work (CSCW) 8(3):175–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Berkman Faculty Development Fund at Carnegie Mellon University for partially supporting this research; Andrea Fineman, Xiaowei Jiang, Yin Wang for their assistance with field observations, data collection, and time-lapse coding; Chang Liu for her assistance with the Space Syntax analyses; Professor Bruce Hanington, the Director of Graduate Studies, for his support of this research effort; and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Peter Scupelli

Authors
  1. Peter Scupelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter Scupelli .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Comp Sci & Digi Tech, University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

    Nicholas S. Dalton

  2. Mixed Reality Laboratory,Dep of Comp Sc, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Holger Schnädelbach

  3. Department of Informatics, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Mikael Wiberg

  4. The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, London, United Kingdom

    Tasos Varoudis

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Scupelli, P. (2016). Creative Workplace Alchemies: Individual Workspaces and Collaboration Hotspots. In: Dalton, N., Schnädelbach, H., Wiberg, M., Varoudis, T. (eds) Architecture and Interaction. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30028-3_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30028-3_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30026-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30028-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation