New World of Work

Jacqueline Vischer, professor, department of environmental design, University of Montreal, has created a model that ranks comfort into an ascending continuum of physical, functional, and psychological comfort, which roughly parallels the Kolcaba model of relief, ease, and renewal.

Various aspects of physical comfort, such as temperature, lighting, acoustics, and ergonomics, have been researched extensively over the years, so standards for those areas affecting health and safety are fairly well defined.

“There is no one temperature and humidity level at which everyone is comfortable.” *10

it’s very easy to organize a space in such a way that it draws a crowd, but sometimes a crowded space is the last thing you need to complete the task at hand.  Sometimes we need sole occupation of our space.  Good workspaces need to have affordances that allow solitary workers to complete a task without disturbance.

human beings are complicated social and territorial animals; even if we place them into an open and level playing field, they will self-organize, self-group, and vie for favored places.  Good office designs need to take such matters into account and not treat employees like autonomous widgets (albeit wildly creative ones) who will simply disperse into a space randomly like avatars in an elaborate video game.

We are living and breathing animals who feel emotions, get hungry, need privacy, and are prone to lapses of attention when distracted.  This part of the office space equation cannot be neglected.