North Americans spend almost 50% of their lives at work, and more than 70% of these employees are in open-plan offices. This office type has become popular because it seems to be efficient and cost-effective. It can save space and construction costs and can be easily reconfigured.

However, occupant satisfaction with an office environment also plays a role in its cost-effectiveness. If office conditions are poor, employees can become uncomfortable and dissatisfied, which can cancel the expected savings. Fortunately, appropriate office technologies and design strategies can improve satisfaction with acoustics, lighting, indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and workstation design.

To evaluate the effect of this office design on employees, the NRC-IRC formed a consortium of members interested in examining open-plan offices from a multidisciplinary approach. Researchers in engineering, acoustics, psychology, indoor air quality, architecture, and lighting examined the role of environmental satisfaction in the success and cost-effectiveness of office design. COPE's goal is to offer information and software that will help office planners to create cost-effective open-plan offices.

Consortium Members

Public Works and Government Services Canada, the Building Technology Transfer Forum, Ontario Realty Corporation, USG Corporation, British Columbia Building Corporation, Natural Resources Canada, and Steelcase Incorporated contributed to the COPE Project... ..[more]

Cost-effectiveness Through Environmental Satisfaction

An effective open-plan office must provide environmental satisfaction for its occupants as well as meeting an organization's budgetary requirements. Studies, including COPE, have found that poor environmental satisfaction is linked with poor job satisfaction, which can negatively affect an organization... ..[more]

Project Details

Using literature reviews, simulations, experiments in mock-up offices, and a field study, COPE researchers performed their evaluation in three steps:

Defined the effects of office design parameters (workstation size, partition height, lighting systems, noise masking systems, etc.) on physical office conditions (lighting, ventilation, acoustics);
Defined the effects of office design parameters and office conditions on environmental satisfaction;
Created design tools to evaluate environmental satisfaction with user open office plans... ..[more]