How waterfalls and soundscaping can make open-plan offices less awful

Open-plan offices are uniquely bad. The reason they persist is for one reason, and one reason alone: they’re cheap. They’re cheap to build. Since most office spaces are in an open configuration, they’re cheap to rent, too. But this is a false economy. No matter how much money you save, it will always be eclipsed by the staggering cost of lost productivity. According to a University of Exeter study, open plan offices result in a 32 percent drop in “workers’ well-being” and 15 percent reduction in productivity. There have been several attempts to make open-plan offices less awful, but these are…

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