Communication in flow

Smart bosses know: When their employees talk to each other at work or during breaks, it’s usually to share experiences and solve problems. Communication in everyday work is a lively, spontaneous form of knowledge transfer. In most cases, it is good for the working atmosphere and important for collaboration and flexible productivity. Architecture can prevent or promote the flow of communication within a company.

In addition to the notorious “hallway radio,” in which information that is not always necessarily accurate is exchanged, numerous other forms of informal communication exist in every company. Communication experts are convinced of their great importance, not least for productive teamwork. Over coffee or a cigarette, many a technical or organizational problem has probably been solved together. Cognitive researchers also know that creative solutions tend to be found more casually, which can be at home in the bathtub or in a stimulatingly designed lounge “at work”.

“In addition to the flow of materials, the flow of personnel, information and communication has also become the focus of layout design in recent years,” reports the Factory Planning Handbook. Here, communication relationships and flows “can be visualized using the same methods as are commonly used for material flows.”

Common lounge as a meeting place

In order to enable the flow of communication to be as undisturbed as possible, including between members of working groups and between different but cooperating working groups, traffic routes should be kept as short and barrier-free as possible. “Here, the areas occupied by employees for offices, workshops and social areas must also be incorporated into the layout considerations, since their location and training are decisive for the degree of internal communication,” say the planning experts.

Thus, architecture has the task of providing communication points and islands that can be arranged as flexibly as possible, which invite exchange and enable undisturbed meetings – in a noisy factory hall, sufficient sound insulation must be ensured, otherwise communication will remain on demand. Notice boards and displays are suitable here for providing important, target-group-specific information.

Because personal communication is multidimensional and always takes place via several channels, attention must also be paid to visual transparency. Glass surfaces not only offer a view out of the master office or meeting room, but also into it. In the spatial arrangement of hall offices, it should also be borne in mind that an overview also creates distance. If you want to avoid hierarchies wherever possible, you don’t have to cement them in place through structural measures.