Modular Personal Workspace Layout Balancing Privacy and Visibility
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing temporary workspace arrangements in open facilities lack visibility, privacy, and durability, often being misplaced or damaged due to their structural design, which reduces their usability and encourages misuse or theft of high-end fixtures.
Innovation Solution
A modular workspace design featuring a lounge chair surrounded by a partial wall structure with transparent upper sections and a robust lower wall, integrated with fixed seating and work surfaces, ensuring privacy, visibility, and minimizing damage through secure mounting and ergonomic layout.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If hotelling offices are constructed with closed walls to provide privacy, then employee privacy is improved, but visibility and accessibility are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies glass panels as flexible transparent shells to create wall structures that provide physical enclosure and privacy while maintaining visual transparency. This allows employees to have private workspaces that remain visible and accessible, resolving the contradiction between privacy and visibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The glass wall structure acts as an intermediary element that mediates between the need for privacy (enclosure) and visibility (openness). The transparent material allows light and sight to pass through while still providing a defined workspace boundary.
2Shape
If hotelling offices are positioned in out of the way locations to maintain facility aesthetics, then overall space appearance is improved, but usability and accessibility are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the workspace into modular glass-enclosed units that can be distributed throughout the open facility. This segmentation allows individual workspaces to be placed in high-visibility, high-usability locations without compromising the overall aesthetic of the facility, as each module is self-contained and visually appealing.
Solution Approach 2:
The use of thin glass panels creates lightweight, aesthetically pleasing structures that can be positioned in open areas without significantly blocking light or visual flow. This maintains facility aesthetics while improving accessibility and usability compared to traditional opaque wall constructions.
3Productivity
If high-end fixtures are provided in temporary workspaces to improve employee comfort, then employee productivity is improved, but durability and anti-theft are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The patent integrates high-end fixtures directly into the glass wall structure itself, rather than using separate, removable components. The work surfaces, lighting, and other fixtures are built into or permanently attached to the glass walls, making them difficult to remove or damage while maintaining aesthetic appeal and functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The glass wall structure serves as both the enclosure and the mounting substrate for all fixtures. This integration means that to access or remove fixtures, one would need to damage the glass structure itself, providing natural protection against theft and misuse while maintaining high-end functionality.
Data Source
AI summary
A lounge assembly comprising a lower wall assembly including first and second substantially planar wall sections, the first and second wall sections forming first and second internal surfaces, respectively, that form an angle and at least in part define an assembly space, a lounge chair assembly including a seat and a backrest, the seat including a front edge portion and the backrest including first and second side edges, the lounge chair assembly mounted at least in part within the assembly space with the seat at a first height with a front surface of the backrest facing away from the first internal surface and the first side edge spaced apart from the second internal surface and a worksurface member having a flat and substantially horizontal tabletop surface and a circumferential edge that defines a tabletop shape, the worksurface member supported within the assembly space at a second height above the first height of the seat with a rear portion thereof extending between the first side edge and an adjacent portion of the second internal surface.