Humans have been collaborating since the first set of hunters headed off to catch dinner. People are still working together so that they can eat dinner, but the joint work is now not as directly linked to eating-intermediary processes of cashing paychecks and going to the grocery store now intervene. Many of our species' most important accomplishments, in the arts, sciences, and elsewhere, are the culmination of collaboration between individuals. Interpersonal communication, face-to-face and virtual, is a prerequisite for all of these collaborations. It is also needed for collaborative achievements at a smaller scale, for example, those that increase an organization's competitiveness in its marketplace or fine-tune a medical treatment plan.Psychologists and other social scientists have done scores of research studies, in cross-discipline projects, to learn more about workspace design and collaboration. As an introduction to this volume, that research will be discussed here. This essay discusses the state of the research in designing spaces that support collaboration as well as challenges faced by collaborating designers and design educators. Emphasizing research published during the last 10 years ensures that all information shared is consistent with workplaces generally available today and that only current research programs are critiqued. The discussion will focus on work done in offices by knowledge workers.Discussions among designers, facility managers, and design educators have, for the last several years, focused on maximizing communication among employees instead of developing spaces that make it more likely that people will work better; employee communication has often been encouraged regardless of whether it supports the work process (Heerwagen, Kampschroer, Powell, & Loftness, 2004). As Heerwagen and her team indicate, this communication has been seen as a way to spur collaboration. Many clients believe employee interaction will spawn effective and efficient ideas that will resolve the difficult challenges facing their firms. This drive to facilitate communication has often led to the development of workspaces where it is difficult for employees to do work that requires concentration, which in turn leads them to experience stress, and, as a result, their performance on individual and collaborative tasks suffers (Sundstrom, 1986).Recent workplace design has often not facilitated achievement of organizational objectives, whereas understanding how design can support teamwork and collaboration has become more important. The commercial, nonprofit, and government workspaces are evolving: ''Organizations around the world are well along a decade-and-a half evolution in the design of work-shifting from individual jobs in functionalized structures to teams embedded in more complex workflow systems . . . A variety of forces are driving this shift. Increasing competition, consolidation, and innovation create pressures for skill diversity, high levels of expertise, rapid response, and adaptability. Teams enable thes...
