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They can be noisy and distracting or depressingly quiet, and frictions with co-workers are guaranteed - so why do so many of us continue to work in open-plan offices?
In the spring of 1962, a fourth-year British architectural student was tasked with sketching an office layout.
In the course of his research, Frank Duffy stumbled across a small article in a trade magazine about a new workplace design that had taken hold in Germany. Accompanying the article was a curious photograph.
"The arrangement of the desks was somehow organic," Duffy recalls. "And there were other features that were striking. There were lots of plants around the place, and a carpet."
The office in the photograph was open-plan, but it was a world away from the open-plan offices with which everyone was then familiar.
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<p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">They can be noisy and distracting or depressingly quiet, and frictions with co-workers are guaranteed - so why do so many of us continue to work in open-plan offices? </p> <p>In the spring of 1962, a fourth-year British architectural student was tasked with sketching an office layout.</p> <p>In the course of his research, Frank Duffy stumbled across a small article in a trade magazine about a new workplace design that had taken hold in Germany. Accompanying the article was a curious photograph. </p> <p>"The arrangement of the desks was somehow organic," Duffy recalls. "And there were other features that were striking. There were lots of plants around the place, and a carpet."</p> <p>The office in the photograph was open-plan, but it was a world away from the open-plan offices with which everyone was then familiar.</p> <div class="caption body-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66609000/jpg/_66609512_qt_web_download_osram-1966_mobiliarordnung.jpg" alt="The plan for Osram, 1965" height="464" width="464"></div> |
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