The Third/Hybrid Space
Another option in the quest for privacy is for building owners and employers to consider adding a third space—not home, not work but something in between, such as a coffee shop, that’s carved out of an existing floor space that’s distinct from the office environment, according to Varner. Shockey adds, “It doesn’t feel like a totally branded space; it really feels like an authentic, vibrant café space, and there are certain techniques you can use—maybe with high-backed banquettes or the arrangement of the space, incorporating technology in there—so that it really can function as a pure café but also as a really valuable additional typology of space for people to work in.”
Meade suggests similar hybrid spaces that utilize booths or banquette-type seating—a small, enclosed all-hands area, for example, where there is separation from the open space for perhaps six to eight employees to sit down quietly and collaborate in small groups or hold impromptu meetings without being entirely enclosed.
Phone Booths
“Something we’ll employ heavily in a lot of our work is private phone booths, which are just rooms for one, two or three people where they can sit in there all day if they want,” Meade notes. If employees have a private phone call for example—personal, work-related or whatever it may be—these small-footprint phone booths are spaces people can utilize without having to leave the office.
Furniture
Although many furniture manufacturers have (rightfully) attempted to address the issue of acoustical and/or visual privacy in their products, there is a distinct difference between implied privacy and psychological privacy, Shockey notes.
“I think furniture can only go so far,” he says. “There are some really ingenious solutions out there for furniture but I think a lot of them are not necessarily applicable to the business environment. They might be more applicable to a university lounge-type environment or a semi-public environment, but some of the high-back furniture systems, for example, have very limited application in commercial settings.”
Still, in a retrofitting scenario where existing floor plans or expensive renovations are a barrier to addressing privacy issues thoroughly, there are a number of furniture solutions that can help improve a sense of visual and acoustic privacy.
Winning the Privacy War through Permission
At the end of the day, addressing privacy concerns in the physical design of an office environment will only be as effective as the corporate culture that enables (or discourages) it. In other words, all the quiet zones and additional conference rooms will be to no avail if management frowns upon those employees found using them.
“There has to be a culture of permission,” Shockey insists. “If somebody is an introvert and they feel that for them to really get their job done, they need to spend a half day in some kind of an enclosed space—enclave, huddle room or whatever you want to call it—there has to be a culture of permission where they feel like they can do that, as well as the physical space to do it.”
Ultimately, people are all different, and their work styles and needs vary from day to day or even hour by hour. It’s the nature of the modern knowledge worker. Companies that embrace their diversity and provide ample space for employees to switch gears from collaboration to quiet, focused work will be the ones that win the war on privacy— and reap the benefits of a peaceful workplace.