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On 4 Mar 2005, Peter da Silva wrote:
>> I wish that the original ideas behind the office cubical design had
>> taken off, rather than the space and money saving rat-hole they are
>> always implemented as these days.
>
> Oooh, can you elaborate?
Yes, but not nearly as well as I want, and that brings me back to the
hate of software. In this case, Opera, which seems to have lost my
bookmark of the article about this.
Anyway, much of this comes from a fairly recent interview, published on
the web, with the chap who did the first cubical type layout.
I can't turn it up, either, which annoys me. My google foo is
overwhelmed by the flood of people wanting to sell me cubical walls.
It would probably help if I could recall the name of the architect, too.
Basically, he was hired by a furniture manufacturer (IIRC) who where
getting a new office done for their administrative staff, and they told
him "build something that makes our staff more efficient."
The result was a cubical layout, with several specific design goals: The
cubical should provide privacy and security to the occupant, and allow
them to express themselves.
The layout was also designed to encourage chance meetings and discussion
between the staff when they left their desks, but without disrupting
people working near them.
Also, the use of partitions rather than fixed walls allowed for a great
deal of flexibility in layout, so the office space could be restructured
to meet the needs of workers, when they varied from the simplest case.
This was, in my eyes, a reactionary stance, since the office environment
of the time discouraged individual expression and tended toward
open-plan layouts where supervisors were able to monitor staff.
The management of the place accepted this, although, apparently not
without some hesitation. One of the anecdotes he tells is from fairly
early in the actual use of the office:
Initially, the staff didn't do anything much with their cubical space.
A couple of photos of wives or children had turned up on desks, but
these were all very small and not at all prominent.
Then, on day, a member of staff brought in a stuffed monkey and sat it
on the desk. The management looked at this, then gave the architect a
call to ask about this, because this was unusual and worried them
somewhat.
The architect told them "that is precisely what I intended" and,
somehow, managed to convince the office management to give it a try.
Eventually, when that didn't cause problems for the member of staff,
various other expressions of actual personality turned up.
The overall assessment of the management, and the architect, was that
the whole thing was a success - they ended up with happier and more
productive staff, and considered it a good thing.
One of the questions, and the fairly obvious one, asked in the interview
was what the originator of the cubical idea thought of the modern
"Dilbert" style cubical farms.
His response was that people saw the cubical design as a chance to save
money by using cheap dividers, by reducing space available, and by
imposing rigid structure on the workspace.
They didn't see the key parts of the design, flexibility, privacy and
self-expression, as important, and discouraged them.
So, most of the uses of cubical architecture were very different from
what he intended. In my reading, the technology was adopted, but the
basic idea he was reacting against continued strong.
Today, cubical design is used to create an environment that discourages
personal expression, reduces privacy, and enabled close monitoring of
staff to ensure they don't avoid work.
An environment of mistrust and irritation, in fact, that probably does
more to encourage poor behavior than it can to prevent it.
None of these ideas are dead, though. They keep turning up in
management books all over the place, especially those targeting the IT
industry. Ways to redesign the cubical environment to make it more
efficient and effective for staff.
Part of the reason that I am upset at losing track of the interview is
that I hit these notions through the more modern books first, and had
simply assumed that they were revolutionary -- that cubical architecture
was originally aimed at repressing, not encouraging, individuality.
Having found out that it was conceived as the opposite of that makes
sense, but more tangible proof is always nice to have.
Sorry to have to retell it myself, rather than cite the original.
Daniel
--
I am he, As you are he, As you are me, And we are all together.
-- John Lennon, "I Am The Walrus"
There's stuff above here
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