Date: April 27, 2012

"Organisations and their facilities managers are under pressure to reduce the space allocation to individuals in open-plan offices, as a means to reduce costs. The reduced space allocation, however, risks creating an unpleasant working environment, either directly through the creation of adverse physical conditions (e.g., more noise, added obstructions to air circulation), or indirectly through psychological processes such as privacy or stress. As part of a larger project concerning the design and operation of open plan offices, a field study was conducted to determine the effects of open-plan office design (particularly workstation size and partition height) on the indoor environment and on occupant satisfaction with that environment. The study is a pre-post renovation study of government office buildings that will undergo space-saving renovations to smaller cubicle sizes."