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Technology proliferation is on a movement to outpace an 18^th-century computing industry paradigm known as “Moore’s law.” This law establishes the rate of technological advancements. The premise of this edict is evident in our coupled workplace with the integration of an emerging technology known as Ambient Intelligence (Aml).

The modernization of the traditional office is designed to be collaborative and environment-friendly. Modernization is primarily due to ambient intelligence. “Opportunities for process and business improvements will derive from a “real-world Web” of smart objects and ambient intelligence, and from consumer-oriented trends such as Web business platforms, aesthetic design, and mobile robots as they move into the business world” (Fenn and Smith, 2005, para. 1). It is safe to reason that ambient intelligence is on a trendy trajectory in many business-oriented workplaces, worksites and workspaces. The business culture is inconspicuously changing before our eyes. Architects and designers are seamlessly incorporating this trend into their respective end-to-end processes of constructing new or retrofitting existing office spaces.

Its unnoticeably embedded adoption is in conference rooms, doorways, elevators, escalators, lighting, meeting rooms, phone displays, and walkways. As ambient technology naturally collides with the functional way an office professional interactively operates through a usual workday, its adaptation becomes seemingly smart and swift. The interesting facet of this technology is that one would not know it unless it was pointed out.

Although there are equipment and devices that offer a singular approach of being convenient and hands-free, there exist common misconceptions and unassuming annoyances that are in place as inherent issues. Once the work environment impedes productivity or natural flow of movement, we realize something is different. These differences align to the surrounding tangible and intangible cues. The information presented in this chapter will disclose the underlying issues at a practical level.

Office layout arrangements have a significant influence on many important aspects of organisations, and design firms need to liaise with the client to determine the most appropriate design process. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors design firms consider when designing new office layouts and the nature of future offices from the design and workplace strategist firms’ perspectives.

A qualitative study comprising interviews with leading international and nation design firms and workplace strategy consultant firms in Australia. Qualitative data was analysed using a thematic approach, which adopted within case, and across case, analyses.

Research identified major factors considered when identifying appropriate workplace strategies. These included the existing and preferred culture of the organisation, the level of flexibility required, functionality and technology requirements, acoustic strategies, sense of community and generation gap between employees. Participants believed future offices would be technology driven, community oriented, sustainability, health and well-being focussed, smaller in size with satellite offices, such as co-working and office spaces.

This research has implications for industry and academics, as it provides an in-depth understanding of workplace specialists’ and design firms’ perceptions of clients’ contemporary and future requirements from office spaces. It also illustrates what they look at when designing office spaces for large corporates.

Research demonstrates how the office environment should match with the physical and psychological needs of the organisation and its employees. Findings have practical applications to professionals in human resource management and the design, management, development and valuation of office buildings.

This paper provides in-depth insights into how design firms and workplace strategists meet organisations’ changing demand for physical spaces, their main considerations in developing new workplace strategies, process followed and nature of future workplace in Australian context.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a comprehensive framework that covers the major dimensions of performance-oriented office environments including involved actors and performance parameters on the one hand, and the processes and success factors of implementation and change management of such workspace projects on the other hand, with their interaction to be considered as well. This framework can serve as a first guideline and rough “checklist” to support such projects, both in research and practice.

The framework was developed and refined by combining international literature analyses, industry experience from the authors and application of first conceptual ideas to a pilot project. The methodology of the whole endeavor, not only this paper, is a grounded theory approach, acknowledging the intermediate state of prior theory regarding workspace change projects. The framework will thus be further developed with additional case-based empirics in the future.

The framework addresses the design parameters (the content) of (re)developing performance-oriented office environments as well as the management (the processes) of this (re)development including its implementation. Due to the considerable number of dimensions and factors relevant for workspace projects in addition to their interaction and dependency as well as the individuality of situation and stakeholders, the probability of workspace project failure is high. Knowing the parameters of workspace change project success and measures to be tracked and checked during the design and implementation processes of such projects is therefore imperative. Suggestions for operationalizing the relevant factors are made. Equally important is to understand and address individual emotions and concerns of those being involved in or affected by the change situation, and to inform and include them adequately. The comprehensive framework provides a respective first overview.

The framework is conceptual, based on many sources. Yet, the exhaustive inclusion of all research on the many relevant factors is neither feasible nor intended. The paper rather tries to be comprehensive on the dimensions to be considered and to only exemplarily concretize how to handle this complexity in a manageable and practical way. Future research needs to test and adapt the proposed framework, to detail key performance indicators (KPIs), indicators and processes suggested, and to develop an according planning and controlling system.

The paper pictures key aspects for the effective design and change management of holistic workspace projects. KPIs as well as leading indicators are introduced that can be used to measure the various dimensions in an ongoing process throughout all phases of the project, enabling the organization to anticipate or at least rapidly react to problems arising. Accordingly, success factors for managing workspace change are collected and structured along the workspace dimensions including actors and performance.

The originality of this study lies in the approach to comprehensively integrating design and change management parameters of workspace projects, the explicit performance orientation and the inclusion of the multitude of actors (i.e. users, facilities management, Human Resources, ICT). Instead of the design and its implementation only being supported by change management, the organizational environment and its needs – like way of working, organization models, performance priorities and change capabilities – are driving the design, which constitutes a new approach in the design activity.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of a new method using instruments with increased ability to objectively assess and quantify the performance impacts on office workers in built environment settings.

A Distractibility Index (DI) was calculated for sample employees, who then used a computer‐based instrument in two settings to evaluate cognitive impairment

There was measured cognitive impairment in higher distracting work environments. There is potential to use DI to predict performance detriments and aid better workplace design/management.

The study employed only a small sample size. The level of noise and other distractions in the settings studied need to be measured objectively. There is a need to differentiate between various sources of distraction in terms of their impact on cognitive impairment.

The findings of this paper can help to improve workplace performance, with less reliance on physical design solutions.

Workplace performance evaluations typically use subjective measures and self‐assessments. Modern work is increasingly cognitive, and hence new computer‐based and more objective tools are required. The tool used in this research has been highly validated in other applications.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact that office comfort has on office occupiers' productivity.

The author evaluates the literature that claims to make a linkage between the physical comfort of the office environment and the effect on the productivity of the office occupiers. Office comfort will initially be discussed as a generic concept and subsequently be broken down into sub‐components.

The review of the literature reveals that the evaluation of office comfort is a complex one. There appears to be no universally accepted definition of office comfort, and there is a clear lack of agreement as to how office comfort should be measured. This paper establishes that, there is enough evidence to support the claim that office comfort can affect productivity.

This paper adds to the debate by identifying the need for a common and universally accepted measurement of office comfort. It is proposed that this can largely be achieved by evaluating office comfort with a multi‐item scale, and adopting an office occupier perspective to any future research.

This paper aims to establish if office occupiers, who adopt different work patterns, can be segmented based on differences of perceived productivity with regards to the physical environment and the behavioural environment.

Components of office productivity were used in an office productivity model with categorical data enabling a unique opportunity to undertake an analysis of office occupiers by work process type.

The four distinct evaluative components used were comfort, office layout, interaction and distraction. The components were subsequently used for more detailed statistical analysis. This study establishes that statistical differences exist between the work styles under investigation.

This research establishes that to truly appreciate office productivity there is a need to further understand the way that people work in offices and their specific requirements. The matching of office occupier need with space provision can only be achieved if the office occupier is involved in the creation of the office solution.

This study demonstrates that there is a need to consider how the office environment matches the work patterns of the office occupiers. This understanding of how the office works could be considered as establishing the office landscape or “officescape”.

This article aims to describe how people manage to integrate their use of paper and electronic documents in modern office work environments.

An observational interview type study of 14 participants from 11 offices in eight organizations was conducted. Recorded data were analysed using a thematic analysis method. This involved reading and annotation of interview transcripts, categorizing, linking and connecting, corroborating, and producing an account of the study.

The findings of the study can be categorized into four groups: the roles paper and electronic documents serve in today's offices, the ways in which these documents are managed, the problems associated with their management, and the types of fragmentation that exist in terms of their management and how these are dealt with.

The study has identified the need for better integrated management of paper and electronic documents in present-day offices. The findings of the study have then been used to propose a set of guidelines for the development of integrated paper and electronic document management systems.

Although similar studies of offices have been conducted in the past, almost all of these studies are prior to the widespread use of mobile and network-based shared technologies in office environments. Furthermore, previous studies have generally failed to identify and propose guidelines for integration of paper and electronic document management systems.

In the past British management has shown little interest in the working environment. Explains why this must change for social and economic reasons. Defines ergonomics in the office and describes the inadequacies of most office equipment, going on to discuss ways in which these faults can be rectified, for example multi‐task systems, accommodating individual and group work needs, the need to move around in the office and saving space. Concludes by explaining how many businesses are beginning to look to ergonomics owing to Government policy, Euro‐influence and technological advances.

This paper aims to investigate green buildings and individual productivity, specifically within the context of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) within green certified office buildings. The purpose of the research was to determine how self-assessed productivity levels were influenced by the indoor environment of the office building.

Qualitative data analysis was conducted via semi-structured interviews in two financial services companies (FSCs), both based in green certified office buildings in South Africa. Thematic analysis was conducted to extract common themes from the data. Furthermore, the data were compared to previous research to identify new potential pathways or provide support for existing pathways.

The main findings were that physical components, such as temperature, lighting, ventilation and noise, contribute depending on the respondent to individual productivity, engagement, organisational commitment and psychological wellbeing. Safety, underpinned by location and amenities, was a new component not previously considered that subtly contributed to individual productivity.

The research provides valuable insight into the contributing factors that impact individual productivity within a green certified office building, as previous researchers have yet to reach a consensus on the relationship between individual productivity and IEQ in green certified office buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a validated theoretical framework for the evaluation of office productivity, which includes components to represent both the physical and the behavioural environment. It is proposed that by adopting such an approach, insights into the dynamic nature, or connectivity, of office environments can be established. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of the office environment on its occupants' perceived productivity.

The study's strength is that it is based on two sizable data sets. The data collected consists of data about the physical characteristics of the office environment and data pertaining to the behavioural environment.

Results are analysed for specific work patterns, to establish meaning and relationships. In all of the four work patterns evaluated it was found that interaction was perceived to be the component to have the most positive affect on productivity and distraction was perceived to have the most negative. It is proposed that the results in this paper will provide support for the hypothesis that it is the behavioural components of the office environment that have the greatest impact on office productivity.

This research establishes that to truly appreciate office productivity there is a need to further understand the behavioural environment. Whilst this research evaluates different work styles and office productivity, there is a possibility to extend this to investigate personality and team role types.

This study establishes that it is the behavioural environment that has the greatest impact on office productivity. It demonstrates that it is the dynamic elements of the office environment, interaction and distraction that are perceived as having the greatest positive and negative influences on self assessed productivity.