• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.38 no.3
• /
• pp.213-222
• /
• 2012

Objectives: This study was undertaken in order to evaluate by work space zoning and structure the concentrations of biological contaminants in the indoor air of domestic office buildings. Methods: Air samples were collected in the office spaces of 15 office buildings in Seoul from June 28 to July 28, 2011. Prior to the sampling, each office was classified into 'open-plan office', 'cellular office' and 'mixed office' according to the work space zoning. To evaluate the biological contamination of indoor air, total suspended bacteria (TSB), Gram positive bacteria (GPB), Staphylococcus aureus (S.A), Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Gram negative bacteria (GNB) and fungi were investigated. During the sampling, temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) were measured. Results: The TSB concentrations ($GM{\pm}GSD$) were $452({\pm}1.3)cfu/m^3$ in open-plan offices, $366({\pm}1.3)cfu/m^3$ in cellular offices and $287({\pm}1.5)cfu/m^3$ in mixed offices, and there were significant differences between the three groups (p<0.05). The highest concentrations ($GM{\pm}GSD$) of fungi were found in the indoor air of cellular offices $128({\pm}1.0)cfu/m^3$, which was at least three times higher than the concentrations in mixed offices $43({\pm}1.0)cfu/m^3$ (p<0.05). Conclusions: Microbiological contamination in the indoor air of office buildings by work space structure was the highest with the open-plan office layout which includes no high walls or doors separating the occupants.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.21-26
• /
• 2002

The propose of this study is to suggest objective data to be utilized for a plan and the improvement of open space through the analysis of people's behaviour and satisfaction after the introduction of an opened-fence around offices followed by a plan for wall-afforestation of public institution's. The sites examined are four offices; two of them have opened-walls and the others have traditional enclosure. Analysis of frequency is conducted to understand the actual use according to people's individual peculiarities. Pearson's correlation analysis, t-test, multiple regression analysis are carried out to find out relations of fluents. In the end, the satisfaction is high in public institution satisfaction, entrance, space perception. stability, Landscaped office with opened-fence rather than fence, and the increase in usage of fluent of public institution satisfaction, entrance, space perception. stability, confusion brings about rising of use-satisfaction. Satisfaction with the exterior of building is the most important variable that influences the whole urban open space. Furthermore the influences of the approach and stability having connection with open or not-open fence is major variable affecting satisfaction of use of open space. Whether open or not is important factor on satisfaction of open space of office building. Through this study, we can find that opened fence determines use satisfaction of resting space of outdoor-office. So factors affecting satisfaction must be regarded as important requisite on planning, design, development and management in plan for afforestation of fence at public institution.

• Architectural research
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.31-40
• /
• 1999

In this age of "Information", many people consider it a deterrent to information flow to provide a hierarchy with private rooms in a modern office layout. There are others, however, who insist that visual and acoustical privacy are more important than any other design factor in achieving higher productivity. The debate may never end, but the partitioned open plan, which is a new form of the vast open plan, has merits of each concept - open and closed layout. Consequently, office design has dramatically shifted to partitioned open planning, with shorter, temporary walls or partitions, originally intended for increasing privacy and diminishing hierarchy, yet still keeping flexibility in spatial organization. The introduction of low-level partitioned spaces in an office layout, however, produces a complicated lighting design problem. Obviously, accurately predicted daylighting performance data are needed not only for daylighting design but for artificial lighting system design. Scale models of 12 sets of unit partitioned spaces are constructed and extensive scale model measurements of both daylight and reflected sunlight have been performed within an artificial sky simulator. The prototype-building interior is modeled with different partition configurations, each of which is modeled using the different envelope geometry and exterior configurations, and then the variations in interior light levels are estimated. The result indicates that partitioned spaces employed in an open plan of modern offices still offer a large potential for daylighting and energy saving as well. Much of the savings may derive from the cumulative effect of reflected sunlight. Optimal design for building envelope geometry and exterior configuration promises additional savings.

• Architectural research
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.9-14
• /
• 2010

The present study explored the applicability of Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA) techniques to workplace design research. Six types of VGA measures in Depthmap encompassing visual connectivity, three types of visual integration, mean depth, and visual entropy were employed for the analysis of individual privacy for task concentration and group relationship behavior in the open-plan office environment. Data comprised 136 workers in 6 open-plan offices filled with low-paneled (1.2-1.5m) cubicle workspaces. For the statistical analysis, Spearman's rho correlations and t-tests were applied for the spatial and behavioral measures. The results showed that workspace VGA measures have a potential to be useful information to account for workers' concentration privacy and, limitedly, also informal relationships with team members. Visual entropy values especially offer reliable information to predict various aspects of office workers' privacy behavior while visual integration can be used to account for the workers' sense of trust in group relations. The study also discussed the limitation of VGA applications to the workplace context.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
• /
• v.15 no.5 s.58
• /
• pp.157-166
• /
• 2006

Recently, it appears several counterproposals about desirable figures of urban architecture. All of them proposes 'publicity' with cohernt tendency. The reason why it concentrates quantitative expansion of city without united design by urban plannar is that neglect quality values of city. As a solution of poor environment, there cue out the various efforts, about problem of each building, problem of city space, problem of laws and so forth. The reason why necessity of public space was embossed in that architecture extend the activity of citizen and make up the city space. But, each building pursues the private interest, so it is difficult to secure a public space with a high hand. Thus, architecture law has been revised in 1991 and bring the system of open space to match up the publicity and the private interest. Actually, western country brought it and obtained excellent results. While quantity of open space have increased since 1991, a lot of problems revealed in real usage and quality. By means of problem's solution, this study focus on the diversion of recognition for necessity of various open space. In result, on the occasion of approach and openess, except for several building, most glass a facade and the pedestrian can approach easily. Moreover, office buildings near the subway station connected with their low floor. So, the office buildings give openess to pedestrian and a people can approach easily to the buildings. On the occasion of amenity, most have bank and lobby on the first floor and have facilities on the underground floor. It leave open. But the reason why they have bank and lobby is that the space is dry and boring(without elements of nature and rest space). Hence, to make a space full of vitality, it have to plan various design elements and facilities. First of all, plan of indoor public space have to make up facility for the public interest. This study is basic investigation for necessity of indoor public space and through the survey of office buildings, it analyze the character of plan and find out the method of publicity's realization.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.414-420
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the background information regarding to the role of workplace on affecting people's performance. In today's industry creativity has a very special and important place because of the dynamic organizational changes and rapid growth of technology. To support these new working styles and specifically, to support creativity within an organization, flexible workplaces are often suggested. Since open-plan office offers more flexibility when compared to completely closed and private ones, they are seen to have more capabilities and are highly valued in today's industry. So the result of this study will contribute towards enhancing the understanding of the effect office design to enhance employees' performance, especially in creative tasks.

• Architectural research
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.9-15
• /
• 2013

Effects of physical attributes of workstation enclosures on the performance of office workers with different difficult levels of office tasks and moods are presented. Performance scores in complex tasks were expected to increase with greater workstation enclosures while those in simple tasks would be the same. Mood ratings were expected to be higher in lower workstation enclosures. Performance of 102 college students on ambient office sounds (45 dBA) with office tasks were measured for 100 minutes under three different workplace enclosures: (1) four foot partitions on two sides; (2) six foot partitions on three sides; and (3) a fully enclosed workstation with eight foot partitions. The tasks were to memorize a paragraph with 130 words (complex task) and to search phone numbers (simple task). The complex task performance in the fully enclosed workstation was increased compared to that in the workstation with four foot partitions (p < 0.001) and to that in the workstation with six foot partitions (p < 0.05). However, occupants in the fully enclosed workstation with office sounds without speech generally gave higher mood ratings. It indicates that closed individual offices may offer important contributions to collaborative work as well as individual productivity. These findings would help design community revise open plan design to increase collaboration among office workers.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.42 no.6
• /
• pp.617-626
• /
• 2023

This study aims to investigate the preferred sound level of water sound for various levels of open-plan-office noise regarding soundscape quality and speech privacy. And assessment of the work efficiency of the water sound. For the laboratory experiment, office noise was recorded using a binaural microphone in a real open-plan office. For the assessment of the soundscape quality and speech privacy, Overall Soundscape Quality (OSQ) and Listening Difficulty (LD) were evaluated under three different sound levels (55 dBA, 60 dBA, and 65 dBA) and five different signal-to-noise ratios (SNR -10 dB, -5 dB, 0 dB, +5 dB, and +10 dB). After the evaluation, the preferred SNR was proposed according to OSQ and LD. For the assessment of to work efficiency of water sound, this study evaluated the cognitive performance of both of the condition noise only and combine the water sound with office noise. The results showed that LD increased as the water sound level increased, but OSQ decreased. When the water sound level was more than the office noise level, the OSQ decreased from noise only. Therefore, considering OSQ and LD, the preferred SNR of water sound was -5 dB for all noise levels. At the preferred level of water sound, the cognitive performance results were shown to decrease at 55 dBA compared to noise only, but at 60 dBA and 65 dBA combine the water sound results were increased than the noise only.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
• /
• 2010.10a
• /
• pp.285-286
• /
• 2010

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
• /
• 2011.04a
• /
• pp.179-180
• /
• 2011