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Avoiding the Cube Farm - Effective Office Floor Plans?
scorp1us asks: "My company, after cramming 30 people into 3000sq feet, has a new lease on life in a 7700sq foot office (pun blatantly intended!). We are primarily a 3D animation/software company and we hope to avoid the cube farm design, but with a large open area in the middle, it is the default solution. We would like to know what effective strategies are used at other places that avoid the cube farm, and produce an inspiring, motivating work environment. This location has a split level and 12' ceilings, so it has a lot of potential."
Have you seen Joel's article on what his office looks like? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffic e.html
Scott Adams has written some excellent literature on this: first start by assigning 4000 sq feet to a place called scorp1us-ville, dedicated to illegal gambling and drinking.
If you do use cubicles, don't forget to extort money from people in exchange for larger ones.
With some subtle variation, the cube farm can be transformed from a soulless cell block into something that actually improves productivity. If you organize each functional team's cubes around their own central open areas, communication between team members will improve significantly.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
When the company I used to work for moved into large office space with cubicles, we chose to create 4-6 person development pits instead of individual cubes. This worked rather well. Each pit basically had a separate team so team members could interact easily and naturally with each other, while providing enough space to avoid feeling crowded.
The openness allowed the developers to bounce ideas off each other and help each other out. Ad-hoc meetings for each team were a snap, everyone could just swivel their chairs to face the center. Meeting times were cut down to about one quarter what gathering everyone into a meeting room spends.
Depending on the personalities, you could try various sizes of pits and maybe have a few individual cubicles for those who really can't work well in open environments. But I think per-person cubicles create a lot of petty territorial issues, which was another thing avoided by the pits.
Put lockable casters on your desks, conference tables, bookcases. (Hopefully your chairs have wheels already.)
Subdivide the central core into 4 sectors with a tall fixed partition wall, so there's a core wall that spaces needing a solid wall (e.g. a conference room whiteboard) can abut. Put power and network jacks in this wall. Run a grid of 3/8" tension cables a few inches below the ceiling across the space on 12" centers (i.e. create a repeating 12"x12" grid of wires near the ceiling.) Space power and network drops regularly in the floor (or, if underfloor jacks are too expensive, in the ceiling.)
Allow teams and individuals to configure workspaces within that space by hanging various-height fabric curtains (weighted to the floor) from that grid with long j-hooks.
Just an idea I thought was neat - I'm sure there are problems with it, but cube walls are a bitch to move around and don't permit organic shapes or long, straight divisions with no perpendicular support. You could have individuals in C-shaped pods within an open area, or circular common workspaces with desks on the circumference, or any other configuration - and individual teams don't need someone from facilities to show up with tools to move things around, just a grasping pole to reach the j-hook (and maybe a ladder if you put your drops in the ceiling rather than the floor.)
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
This is a problem for an architect.
A good architect is specifically skilled in making good spaces, and will be able to come up with ideas which you hadn't thought of, and will help you to make the most of the space you have to work with.
You mentionned having a large open space. How about buying employees laptops, longing chairs and heat lamps, sand and some sound machines to simulate the sound of water. Everyone dreams of working at the beach. So, why not make it happen?
... and if any body ever questions their workload, don't bother them since they're working on their tans! You can wear bearfoot (though some you might want to encourage to wear shoes to hide their feet from others). This idea, I hope you will find, will be extra motivation for employees to work harder to make it to management. I think it will be a productivity boost. And who wouldn't want to have company meetings on a beach?
The beach area can be where management works (sits) all day long
I will forward my resume immediately if this idea is implemented. I've always wanted to work in management, and based on the ability to tan all day long, I believe I will be a great asset to the company.
It's the rest of the place that can make it good or bad. One big problem with most cube farms is that the walls are close to the same bland color as the cubicles themselves. They are also all neutral colorsl which makes it a big "boring" space. I'm not recommending you paint the place yellow and blue or anything - just use some color. Plants and trees are always nice. If you have 12-foot ceilings you could get some nice "trees" that could be seen over the cubical walls to break up the monotony and there are plenty of companies that will lease them and maintain them. You can also get into "art swaps" where businesses get together and share art - every month or two you get new paintings for the walls - some change in the environment is always good. If you really like one, you can generally buy it.
Now, people need personal space when they want to get focused on something and communal space when collaborating. My advice is to give people larger cubes (10x10 or 7x14) for their personal space and encourage them to customize with pictures/posters/objects as they like. This will eat up about 4000-4500 square feet including aisles and other overhead space. Take the other 3000 square feet and make some nice communal areas that people can enjoy. Why not have a "garden" where there are a lot of trees/plants and a fountain? If you don't have fish, keeping the water clear is pretty easy. (Fish die if you mess up the chemicals.) Throw in 2 or 3 cafe tables and people can eat lunch, take a break or have small meetings. It's only a few hundred square feet and it gives a completely different feel than a regular office and allows people to clear their minds. Also, if you want to divide the area into groups or sections - don't use higher walls. First, they eliminate the advantages of having the high ceilings and they are more of the same - just higher. Use greenery or glass so you don't make the space feel smaller.
I'm not sure if you have a need for large meeting rooms or not, but they should be larger than strictly needed. There is nothing worse than being stuck in a small room with too many people that slowly heats up as the meeting progresses. Also, if you have a green area, have a glass wall in the meeting room that gives a view of it. If you need privacy you can close the blinds but people generally don't like cramped spaces and if you have something nice to look at, use it.
So don't blame bad offices on the cubicles alone - if you don't use colors or variations, everything looks bad. Try visiting a university campus and seeing how the hallways in old buildings feel. Sure, everyone has their own office, but it almost feels like a cube farm - narrow halls, no natural lighting, no variation - just door, wall, door, wall, door, water fountain, wall, door, wall.... Then visit some of the newer buildings and see what you like about them. I'm guessing it will be open areas and use of windows and greenery (or windows that look over greenery.)
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Aura Module
Well, they have doors. So you're basically saying if you have a private space with walls up to the ceiling, windows and doors, that's a cubicle.
English is my second language, but I would rather call it an office.
Fleur de Sel
Not strictly speaking cube design, but relevant if you're re-designing an office:
Stand up meetings.
Tables that stand at about 4.5 ft tall (average elbo hight for an average sized adult), that force people to stand and interact with each other. Intel uses this idea, and from what I've heard it's really effective at shortening meeting times, since it's less comfortable. And shorter meetings are a good thing.
--Jason
Zapman
At my current workplace everyone who is involved in teamwork sits on an 'island'. An island is a simple arrangement of 4-6 desks facing inwards, so most people can see everyone on the same island. There are no cubicle walls or similar. You just run power/network across the ceiling and to the centre of each island. People who work on the same projects tend to sit on the one island or on a nearby island (almost pit style). People who work on similar tasks in your company should be put on an island together as that minimises the amount of desk-hopping that needs to be done.
This layout has at least one huge benefit - windows are common space. Sure, some people sit closer to the windows, but everyone has access to them. I often get up and just stroll over to a window and look out.
Some people might criticise this layout for privacy reasons. Frankly, what you gain is much better. Our developers work better together because it's a very grassroots team-oriented environment. We also don't have any employees whose concentration is so fragile that it is broken by a phone call being taken by a neighbour. The only people who don't sit on islands are senior management (CEO, the lone marketing guy, the secretary, etc). They sit on individual desks near each other. This helps to break up the whole "it's just a bunch of islands" that would give it a "forced team-building" feel.
Finally, we have 3 separate meeting areas. A long table near a corner used for whole-company meetings, smaller quiet meetings, or lunch. A separate room with teleconferencing for serious, noisy or brain-storming meetings. And a couple of couches near the entrance used for casual meetings where you want people to be relaxed and candid; most often used for people management or task assignments. It doubles as a place for visitors to sit if they need to wait.
PS. One of the reasons I really wanted to work at this place was the open office, huge windows and overall team/family feeling. You might find the same applies to your developers.
Errr....any architect worth their fee will be able to do everything that you've mentioned here. Sounds like you've been reading one too many new-age-hippy interior magazines.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
Although the parent posted AC, they are actually good questions. What you need is someone asking questions like this, so you/they can work out what it is that you actually need. It's called developing a brief, and if you're serious about having a fairly innovative office space then you should definitely engage an architect or space-planner with experience in "new office design", who can help with this and with the office layout. Probably the best known group in this field is DEGW - http://www.degw.com/
If you decide to go it alone, then you need to think really rationally about every aspect of your company. Most people here have suggested various layouts of cubes, some of which are pretty good, but you need to go a bit further than that. The one reason that companies are getting interested in changing their workplace design is that the quality of the work place environment is very important to people - especially younger generations - and to attract and retain the best and brightest you need to have an office that appeals to them. The other reason is that you can see tangible benefits by getting staff out of the silo-metality that cubes and single offices generate, and into spaces where they can communicate with each other. This is especially important if your business depends on people working together in teams.
So looking at a really basic level, you need to work our how your business operates. If you have a number of project teams, then you need to get the people in a team together. If your teams change frequently then you might put everything on casters like one other poster suggested. What we do in our own office is have desks without any dividers which are then clustered into groups for each project team. Some outsiders don't like this - because they feel it's too noisy or open - but in reality this is not an issue. With the slight increase in ambient noise, the office doesn't feel as interrupted when a phone rings, or when someone is having a conversation. This actually helps people communicate more freely and openly! - which is a good thing for the kind of work we do. However, if your business relies on lots of individuals doing their own thing - like lawyers or researchers, then you may want a whole load of little offices. This is fine - it's just thinking about a team of 1 rather than a team of say 6. The biggest team you should consider is about 20-30. After this size people won't work together as a single unit.
After working the team structure out, all these people are going to need somewhere to meet. Meeting spaces are generally noisy, so you want to cluster them away from the general working area rather than mixing everything up. Think about arranging your office into 4 general areas - entry, noisy, workgroup, quiet. The noisy places - meeting areas, kitchens, social spaces - should go near the entry and encourage people to bump into one another. It's amazing how much sharing of ideas and information happens in these areas. You should consider social spaces and kitchens as part of the work-space, and encourage people to use them. The workgroup space is obviously where most of your desks are - arranged in teams or however. It's good to provide some really quiet spaces at the ends of the workgroup zone for people to make private calls, or sit to work on specific work without interruptions.
Ok - so much writing and I've only really begun....which is why I think you should hire an architect! But either way, good luck with your new office.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
That office design violates the most important guideline of Feng shui, which is that when sitting at the desk, you must have the doorway in clear sight. This is also a good idea because it relieves people of the nervousness of wondering who might be standing in the doorway looking in. And besides, it gives you enough time to switch back to the desktop your real work is on.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Know the code before you speak. There are no obvious Code violations in this article. No mention of using extension cords to connect outlets. In fact, there are no Code-related construction comments at all. If I could, I'd both comment and moderate your post as a troll. Slashdot rules, unfortunately, prevent that. Your current "3, Informative" is a testament to the weakness of this system.
The six disconnect rule is for buildngs, not individual suites of offices. The rule is in place for safety, essentially allowing firefighters to ensure the building is electrically dead in short order. The Code doesn't require that an office UPS be switched off at the service entrance.
Each UPS should be on a branch circuit with appropriate overcuurrent and short circuit protection. Nothing in the article indicates otherwise. Additionally, outlets downstream from the UPS are not the same as outlets on a branch circuit. In this case, the UPS determines both the branch circuit rating and the acceptable load on each outlet, not the Code.
If the wiring goes through the walls, then it is the building wiring, and is subject to the code. And the six disconnect rule will apply. This article specifically says the UPSes are in a separate server room, so how do you get the power from there to the offices? The picture shows more than six, and these are the cheap office models that can't be paralleled, so they would have to be separately switched.
Unlike an office UPS sitting there in the room, there is the expectation that the wall outlets will provide the minimum power levels (e.g. 15 amps for the most common type). Just because they are orange indicating emergency backup power does not relieve this.
After the fire department has disconnected power in this building, they are going to be in for quite a shock to find that outlets in the walls of many rooms still have power if they have shut the building down according to code disconnects.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars