Collaborative Spaces at Work

8 How we look is how we work

Workplace design and the rhetoric of creative work

Peter Bacevice and Gretchen Spreitzer

Introduction

A casual image search on Google of the term “creative workplace” returns hundreds of images of bright, open, and inspiring office spaces and work settings. The initial images in the search depict youthful-looking occupants in mostly open-plan settings. One would be hard-pressed to find a drab cubicle or an exclusive private office in any of these images. A common assemblage found in these images is a mix of energetic workers on laptops in casual work areas collaborating with one another in settings that resemble an archetypal tech or creative company office or maybe a space in a cutting edge academic commons on ...