Sustainable workplace standards are becoming a matter of high importance for companies across the World. In the last few years, we have seen many companies acknowledge the importance of collaborative workspaces. In addition, we have also seen, many companies face disappointment, realizing that the spaces are not as effective as they had planned.
Any workspace reflects the beliefs, values and norms of the company. Companies try to create flexible workspace options for their employees keeping in mind their work patterns. Now, one could easily say the work patterns of employees can be increasingly unpredictable. While that is certainly true, we will find an undeniable relationship between their work patterns and their cultural inclination.
Cultural framework is not something that can be easily ignored. As Hall rightly said, ” No matter how hard man tries, it is impossible for him to divest himself of his own culture, for it has penetrated to the roots of his nervous system and determines how he perceives the world.”
Designing for a workplace requires the sensibility and awareness towards the cultural context. The very idea and function of a workplace may differ from culture to culture.
Below are some graphics that convey ideas of low- context and high- context societies from Yang Liu’s exhibition East meets west, minimalistic visualizations using simple symbols and shapes to convey how different the two cultures are.
The blue side represents Germany (or western culture) and the red side China (or eastern culture):
Ideas such as, personal space, attitude towards punctuality, loudness of voice while talking, perception of public place, definition of a crowded space etc. may vary drastically according to one’s roots and context. This alone demonstrates the sensibility required for designing collaborative spaces.
Workplace standards that work perfectly in one culture may be chaotic and confusing in the other. It is not necessary that all workplace design ideas are equally effective or even appropriate in every culture. Only by closely examining the “way of life” of the people, a workspace design can be made effective.
We cannot ignore the fact that businesses all over the World are becoming more and more global. Workplace from all over the World is evolving. Designing a functional collaborative and agile workspace is possible through a good understanding of the cultural context.
The purpose of this post is not to generalize or stereotype any culture, but to state an emphasis in understanding the users and their cultural inclination. If there is a certain gap between the workplace standards and cultural acceptance, awareness and acknowledgement of the context is the key to design better collaborative workspaces.
To conclude, the idea remains; the design of any collaborative space in a workplace should fit the context. After all, as Steve Jobs quoted, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Jonathan
10 Nov 2018Cultural framework plays very important role in designing co-working spaces. This is true in global context for each n every country. These points are very well explained ! Keep up the good work ! Waiting for such many more reads !