A spatial design guideline for supporting creativity at architectural firms

Abstract

In recent years, creativity has become a major focus in organizations competing to develop new products and offer new solutions to the community. Since then, the achitectural firms’ workplace have been extensively studied as well as modified to support user creativity, productivity, and satisfaction by offering unique environments that create a social space which encourages collaboration, inspiration, and motivation. These changes are a response to the new connection employees have with their surroundings and how the spatial design facilitates the users’ work performance and process. This new focus has played a major role in insuring the organizations’ creative success and attracting selective employees. Investigation into the development of the office workplace designs reveals that certain spatial design features have been documented to have different effects on users. Spatial designs features such as colors, light, layout, furniture, plants, etc. become specific components that designers use to construct the workplace. By studying the layout qualities, tangible an intangible elements that compose the spatial environment in three architecture firms, this paper aims to investigate how the spatial design affects the users and how designers can improve the users’ workplace experience through observations, interviews and questionnaires. A Post occupancy evaluation reveals that there are certain key features that designers and organizations must consider when designing new workplace environments for creative users.