Open plan is the generic term used inarchitectural andinterior design for anyfloor plan that makes use of large, open spaces and minimizes the use of small, enclosed rooms such as privateoffices. The term can also refer tolandscaping of housing estates, business parks, etc., in which there are no defined property boundaries, such as hedges, fences, or walls.
Open-plan office designs (e.g., tables with no visual barriers) reduce short-term building costs, compared to cubicles or private offices, but result in persistently lowerproductivity, dramatically fewer face-to-face interactions among staff, and a higher number ofsick days.[1] Anopen office plan may have permanently assigned spaces at a table, or it may be used as aflex space orhot desking program.
In residential design,open plan oropen concept (the term used mainly in Canada)[2] describes the elimination of barriers such as walls and doors that traditionally separated distinct functional areas, such as combining thekitchen,living room, anddining room into a singlegreat room.
Many pre-industrial homes werehuts that consisted of a single room, but this was usually small. Already in theMiddle Ages, however, there were some single-room hearth-heatedhall houses,shop houses, andInn houses with rent employed owner-occupants. For example in pre-plague London England. After the plague owners of houses in London added rooms. These rooms began to be labeled with a name and a furnishing practice.[3]
In the 1880s middle class suburban houses for families replaced small public rooms of the home with specific functions with larger rooms that fulfilled multiple uses. Walls were abolished or replaced with archways that had glass doors or sliding doors. Butkitchens,bedrooms, andbathrooms remained enclosed private spaces. Larger rooms were made possible by advances in centralized heating that allowed larger spaces to be kept at comfortable temperatures.[4]
Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the early advocates for open plan design in houses,[5] expanding on the ideas ofCharles and Henry Greene andshingle style architecture.[6] Wright's designs were based on a centralized kitchen open to other public spaces of the home where thehousewife could be "more hostess 'officio', operating in gracious relation to her home, instead of being a kitchen mechanic behind closed doors."[7] Not having a dividing wall between the kitchen and a combined living-dining room became more popular especially in the United States in the 1970s.[8]
In the late 2010s, the open plan design became less common. Complaints about open plan designs include that they make it more difficult for different people to engage in different activities and make it difficult to hide clutter or a dirty kitchen.[9] Walls are useful to contain noise and smells and to provide privacy, and small rooms are more efficient to heat and cool (especially when kitchen appliances are in use).[8] A follow-on trend among relatively wealthy homeowners is to build a second "mess kitchen" where the actual activity of food preparation takes place, while entertaining happens in a clean kitchen that is part of the open concept space.[8][10]
Prior to the 1950s open-plan offices mostly consisted of large regular rows of desks or benches whereclerks,typists, ortechnicians performed repetitive tasks.[11] Such designs were rooted in the work ofindustrial engineers orefficiency experts such asFrederick Winslow Taylor andHenry Ford. In the 1950s a German team namedQuickborner developed theoffice landscape, which used conventional furniture, curved screens, large potted plants, and organic geometry to creatework groups on large, open floors.[12] Office landscape was quickly supplanted by office-furniture companies which developedcubicles based on panel-hung orsystems furniture. Many terms (mostly derisive) have been used over time for offices using the old-style, large arrays of open cubicles.
An increase inknowledge work and the emergence ofmobile technology during the late 20th-century led to an evolution in open-plan offices.[13][14] Some companies experimented with designs that provided a mix of cubicles, open workstations, private offices, and group workstations. In some cases, these are not assigned to one particular individual, but are available to any employee of the company on either a reservable or "drop-in" (first come, first served) basis. Terms for this strategy includehoteling, "alternative officing"[15] and "hot desking".
Michael Bloomberg used a team-orientedbullpen style – where employees can see and hear each other freely, but desks are grouped into teams – at his media companyBloomberg L.P. and for his staff whileMayor of New York City[16] (in office: 2002–2013).
A systematic survey of research upon the effects of open-plan offices found frequent negative effects in some traditional workplaces: high levels ofnoise,stress,conflict,high blood pressure and a highstaff turnover.[17]
The noise level in open-plan offices greatly reduces productivity. Productivity in an open-office plan has been estimated to be one-third what the same workers would achieve in quiet rooms.[18] Noisy new technologies, likevoice-activation and mobile phones, also decrease effectiveness in the open-plan setting.[19] One study found employees were less likely to share their views on phone calls in open offices, because they worry that their co-workers will overhear them and judge them negatively.[20] Employees worry that speaking out loud will distract their co-workers.[20]
Some design goals of open plan offices include letting everyone see what everyone else is doing at any given moment, reducinginformation silos by letting everyone overhear what everyone else is saying, andflattening organizational hierarchies.[21]
Although promoted as a way to encourage collaboration, speed decision-making, and increase the group'scollective intelligence, open-plan offices result in a dramatic reduction in face-to-face interactions, as employees turn to digital communication, such as sending e-mail messages.[22] Open-plan offices have frequently been found to reduce theconfidential or privateconversations which employees engage in, and to reducejob satisfaction,concentration andperformance, whilst increasing auditory and visual distractions.[23][14][24]
Open-plan offices elevate the risk of employees needing to take time off for sickness.[25][26] The more people working in a single room, the more sick time is needed.[25] People who work in open-office plans containing more than six people take over 160%as many sick days as those who work in private offices.[27] Different plans have slightly different risks; for example, men working in aflex space have a significantly increased risk for short-term illnesses (e.g., thecommon cold orinfluenza).[26] Easily spread respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 may militate against working in open-plan offices.[28]
Some negative aspects of open plan offices can be addressed with interior design, such as establishing separate places for face-to-face discussions or using materials that absorb noise.[29]
You are one third as productive in open-plan offices as in quiet rooms.
[...] voice-activated technology and mobile phones are increasing office noise levels and decreasing the effectiveness of existing open-plan arrangements.
The majority of papers found in this Scopus search point to several shortcomings of open-plan offices, sometimes suggesting solutions to address dissatisfaction.