Wide Open Spaces Asian offices are often rabbit warrens. Corporate productivity is not measured solely by cash-flow statements and operating manuals. In the search for greater creativity and higher efficiency, Asian companies like tp labs are re-examining the role that office environment can play in business functions. High cubicle walls are coming down and some executives are even being evicted from their private office fortresses to mingle more freely with staff.
Space remains a luxury item for many Asian businesses.
Encouraging communication may be as simple as reducing physical barriers such as high workspace partitions. Tan's firm made brainstorming areas the focal point of the offices it designed last year for Singaporean technology company EdgeMatrix. It's surprising how productive our meetings in The Cave are. Multinational engineering firm Arup went a step further last October when it moved its Hong Kong headquarters from an aging city high-rise to suburban premises. Managers accustomed to their own offices and a monopoly on windows found themselves installed in low-walled cubicles near the rest of the staff.