On Oct 11, 2004, at 2:26 PM, Connie Kreft wrote:

> As a museum-in planning we have the luxury of being able to (amongst
> other things) design administrative space. I'm curious as to how other
> museum administrative space is arranged and what if anything you'd
> change about your current layout. Do you have offices, cubicles,
> workstations? Are you arranged by department, in team circles? What
> about floor staff? How are they made to feel a part of the staff? Do
> they have dedicated space? Thanks for sharing.

Our offices have that homey, "shabby chic" feel that you get when all
your furniture is salvaged, scrounged or was abandoned 10 years ago by
the Air Force.  :)  Not in a good way!! LOL

If it's at all possible to lay out the space so people can see
daylight, that's a big help.  My cube is a little windowless cave in a
larger windowless room -- not the best possible situation, but not
avoidable in our building.

Coming out of corporate land, I find full-height cubicle walls to be
the worst of both worlds.  The space feels cluttered and maze-like, you
can't see anyone else or casually chat with your neighbors (which was
how some of my company's best work got done when we had 4' cube walls),
but you can still hear their phone conversations, so nobody has any
real privacy.  If you have the budget (hey, let's dream big), the best
arrangement I've ever seen was offices that had glass facades and
doors.  It creates a very open feeling environment and lets lots of
light in, but still provides privacy to those who may need it.

If your people need to interact together a lot and be creative, I'm a
fan of low cube walls to separate people.  Again, you still have that
open, airy feeling in the space, but people can get some separation and
sense of "ownership" of a space (and a backsplash for photos of their
kids).  One cube wall at full height with overhead storage is a godsend
for those 3-ring binders and reference books, and permits task lighting
to be mounted under the storage cabinet.

Hope this helps - if you can stand to hear me blather more about it,
feel free to e-mail me.  I've been in several office setups over the
years and have lots of opinions about what works and what doesn't.

Tracy Lunquist
Program Director
Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum
http://www.aeromuseum.org/

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