How might we influence the physical design of our spaces to enhance creativity?

One of the most obvious influences on our creativity is the actual space we work, live and create in. None more so than the workplace, where there's been a growing emphasis on the relationship between workspace design and innovative cultures. Workplaces that facilitate frequent and high quality contact have been shown to have improved communication, job satisfaction and social support. The workplace design can also be a key factor building a sense of community across the staff.

It's where the chance encounters across domains and departments can be encouraged, enabling people to mix and share ideas. Creativity is influenced by the spatial layout, providing staff with the ability to increase unplanned movement, interaction and engage in conversation. This has led business to create more open plan spaces to provide opportunities for ideas to flow with more staff interactions and collaborative encounters.

But there's also increasing evidence that the positive aspects of open plan design are traded off. They can result in more noise, less ability to focus, more distractions and errors and overall under performance.

One study found that open plan environments compromised the employee's ability to concentrate at work. It also found that enclosed private offices clearly outperformed open-plan layouts in most aspects of indoor environmental quality, particularly in acoustics, privacy and the proxemics (the amount of space between people). The benefits of enhanced ‘ease of interaction’ were less than the penalties of increased noise level and decreased privacy resulting from open-plan office configuration.

The emphasis is on creating physical workplace design that can enhance collaborations without compromising an individual's productivity. That means recognising it’s not a one size fits all answer and designing spaces that are tailored to the specific needs of the staff and the kind of work being performed. We all recognise that cafés, water cooler stations and hallways are informal places where people gather, talk and share. It’s part of what Edward De Bono calls ‘purposeful opportunities’, these everyday set ups that can enable our minds to wander freely.

Clever workspace designs look at replicating these features with environments that foster creativity by:

• Creating spaces for informal discussion like casual meetings spaces or where staff can leave projects in progress without worrying about the mess, 
• Including more flexible spaces by the use of moveable walls to enable staff to experiment, collaborate as well as do independent work, 
• Avoiding large impersonal offices that discourage information flow and discussion, Contriving spatial closeness between departments to foster contact between them, 
• Scheduling common lunch breaks to provide more opportunities for communication and encourage interaction between staff.

Neuroscience also backs the need for workplaces to be conducive to abstract thought, broad flexible attention and positive mood. Neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman say to get into a creative state look for expansive surroundings. That means to have more creative thoughts avoid small, windowless offices with low ceilings and narrow corridors. They even recommend avoiding small scale features that can narrow your attention, or sharp edged objects that can unconsciously imply threat or grab your focus of attention. They suggest an ideal environment for creative thinking is open, airy, soft, rounded and calm. But the environment should not remain unchanging as static environments encourage static thinking.

You can even enforce change to destabilise your thoughts to avoid getting stuck in a rut. So, change your routine, rearrange the furniture and have meetings in a variety of places. No matter what the physical space, we can all have some influence over our own workspace to have a positive creative impact.

References:

• Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. Random House, US, 128.
• Alderfer, C.P., Smith. K.K, ‘Studying Intergroup Relations Embedded in Organizations’. Administrative Science Quarterly. Vol. 27, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 35-65. Retrieved from DOI: 10.2307/2392545 , https://www.jstor.org/stable/2392545
• Sander, E., Caza, A, Jordan, P.J. ‘A Framework for Understanding Connectedness, Instrumentality and Aesthetics as Aspects of the Physical Work Environment’. ANZAM 2014, 4-6 Retrieved from https://www.anzam.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf-manager/1687_ANZAM-2014-293.PDF
• Grant, A., Grant, G. (2012). Who Killed Creativity? and How Can We Get It Back? Australia, Jossey-Bass, Wiley Imprint, 205.
• Stevenson, N. (March 2017). IDEO, 13 ways to make your workspace more creative. Retrieved from https://www.ideo.com/blog/13-ways-to-make-your-workspace-more-creative.
• Kounios, J., Beeman, M. (2015). Eureka Factor: Aha moments, creative insight and the brain. Random House, USA, 206.