Panasonic Designed Human Blinders To Block Out Open-Plan Office Distraction (curbed.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Open plan offices, once the darling of design, are now showing their fault lines. To get a little bit of personal space, we've come up with all sorts of solutions, from phone booths to furniture designed to create a sense of privacy. All of those ideas seem totally, completely normal compared to this new project from Panasonic. The tech company's Future Life Factory design studio partnered with Japanese fashion designer Kunihiko Morinaga to develop an open-plan solution to end all open-plan solutions. Say hello to Wear Space. Wear Space is, for lack of a better description, like equine blinkers for humans. The strip of flexible material wraps around the back of the head and covers the side of the eyes, blocking up to 60 percent of a wearer's peripheral vision, Panasonic says. Think of it as a sign for potential bothersome coworkers that broadcasts, "I'm busy."

Comments

Re:I have a better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

"I’ve found that nothing beats good noise-cancelling headphones. Haven’t seen anything better yet."

Try walls... walls are MUCH better than headphones.

I could've sworn...

[Mascot]

... we already had this problem solved. Once upon a time, there was a thing called "an office". Where you walked to your door and closed it when you needed to work without interruption.

It is only remembered now by its distant cousin, the "home office".

Re:Open office planform is a bad idea

[HornWumpus]

Labor costs far exceed rent, unless you're hiring warm bodies to staff a phone bank.

For any sort of tech, saving 50% of rent, but losing 10% of productivity is a huge loss.