Architectural designs have adopted the open plan design mostly in schools and offices. This is because it is less costly in terms of construction and resource allocation. I believe it is a positive development since it promotes the open door policy which is a good form of communication. On the other hand, it has no privacy and leads to distraction easily.
Firstly, the open plan design requires less construction materials since they use simple partitions on the desks which is cheaper. Office equipment such as printers can be placed centrally and shared amongst colleagues. For instance, one printer can easily be shared by ten employees. Furthermore, it adopts an open-door policy which promotes communication from the administrators to the staff, and vice-versa. Additionally, it enhaces team work because people feel at ease approaching each other. To illustrate, some banks have the managers’ desk in the banking hall so that they are readily available and approachable by the clients.
Conversely, it leads to a lack of privacy in the institution since people are close to each other. In addition, this can make an employee uncomfortable thus they won’t be able to deliver . For instance, one can easily hear somebody else’s phone call conversation. Moreover, distractions are readily available in terms of noise since it travels faster in open areas. This makes concentration on an assigned task difficult, thus people are not able to keep up with their targets or deadlines. For example, an employee in such a setup can disrupt the entire office very fast.
To conclude, close team collaboration promoted by open design enhances a good working environment, whereas people can get easily distracted from non-issues.