Social affordances of communal office spaces: a visual analysis

Purpose: In the hybrid working model, offices largely serve as a place to meet co-workers and clients and fulfil the need for casual encounters and social bonding. Not much is known about what interior design characteristics office users perceive as supportive of these informal social interactions. This study explored the relationship between interior design attributes, affordances and perceived support of informal interactions in depicted office spaces.
Theory: Based on the theory of affordances, it was assumed that particular combinations of interior design attributes could be perceived as supporting or impeding social interactions.
Method: Photographs of communal office spaces designed to support informal social interaction were collected from workplace designers. A selection was coded by five interior designers regarding colour use, materialisation, and decoration. Subsequently, the 14 most high-consensus pictures were rated by 34 office workers for social affordances. Spaces were ranked, associations between affordances were calculated, and affordance-design connections were counted. The high-performing spaces were further explored through qualitative comparative analysis.
Findings: The depicted social office spaces predominantly featured light colours, angular shapes and artificial finishes rather than biophilic designs and were not very pronounced regarding colour use. Spaces with ample decoration, plants, rounded shapes, and at least some enclosure were deemed most supportive of informal social interactions. Although many lacked perceived privacy and comfort, they still seemed to afford some intimate conversations. But overall, the spaces’ social affordances and support of informal social interactions were perceived as quite limited.
Value: This study’s novelty lies in applying visual analysis to gather detailed insights into the relationship between interior design attributes and perceived social affordances of office space. The study serves as a basis for further data collection and systematic comparison of social office spaces to discover patterns that could guide workplace design projects.