NEXT month, 快猫短视频 moves to a new HQ. Will the layout of our new offices foster encounters that create innovative ideas? Only time will tell.
One way of finding out would have been to observe how colleagues actually move around and interact and then design the office around that. A method that uses body-worn sensors to do this could one day provide a useful way of testing different interior layouts to maximise interactions.
鈥淚t鈥檚 well understood that in creative work environments spontaneous interactions can鈥檛 be programmed,鈥� says Phil Bernstein at Yale University. 鈥淏ut they are important and can be encouraged by the architecture.鈥�
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聯Spontaneous interactions can鈥檛 be programmed, but they can be encouraged by the architecture聰
So Cecilia Mascolo and colleagues at the University of Cambridge used wearable, wireless sensors to automatically work out how well the layout of common areas in a building 鈥� receptions, cafes, kitchens and breakout spaces 鈥� encourage this kind of behaviour.
The team worked with a local company that was about to move offices. Forty volunteers among the firm鈥檚 230 staff were given short-range radio-frequency ID (RFID) tags to wear for two weeks at both the old and the new building. The RFID antennas were designed to only transmit forwards, over a 1.5-metre range, once per second. That meant two tags could only receive signals from each other if the wearers were close and face to face. Being face-to-face for more than 30 seconds counted as a noteworthy interaction. The new building had been designed to foster more interactions, with doorless meeting rooms, a large central cafeteria and vending machines in two large entranceways.
They found 59 per cent of face-to-face interactions in the old building were between members of different research groups. That rose, as the architects had hoped, to 76 per cent in the new one. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a good thing for research, as serendipitous chats might mean new connections and ideas,鈥� says Mascolo. The research was presented at the conference in Seattle last week.
The work could encourage firms to adjust their interior layouts to maximise interactions. 鈥淢any aspects of modern buildings are reconfigurable,鈥� notes Mascolo. Even better, such data could be added into building design software to help create the perfect work environment, she says.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚nformal-chat tracker to design the perfect office鈥�
