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BARRIERS TO HUMAN CONNECTIVITY AND THE DESIGN OF MORE COLLABORATIVE COWORKING SPACES

Part of: Human Behaviour and Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2020

P. Mandeno  and
W. L. Baxter
P. Mandeno*
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
W. L. Baxter
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
*
*[email protected]

Abstract

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Coworking spaces – the most prevalent form of collaborative workplaces – are said to offer the ideal solution for a new generation of creative knowledge workers, balancing flexibility and independence with structure and community. Recent studies, however, highlight deficiencies as they relate to the promise of ‘community’ made by most coworking spaces. This work reports 16 barriers that impede the process of human connectivity in coworking spaces that emerged from in-depth interviews with 26 coworkers. Suggestions are made for how these barriers might inform more effective workplace design.

Keywords

experience designinteraction designhuman behaviourhuman connectivitycoworking
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference , Volume 1 , May 2020 , pp. 1475 - 1484
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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