Nowadays a lot of buildings, such as schools and offices, are now being built with an open plan design. Why is that? Do you see this as a positive or negative development?

In older times, most of the office buildings used to have cubicle system, but

this

design has now become a thing of the past. People, these days, opt for an open

plan

architecture while constructing any commercial and school buildings.

This

layout helps in reducing the construction cost, but there are

also

some drawbacks to be taken into account. Open

plan

is chosen by many owners to save the building construction as well as maintenance cost. In

this

plan

, furniture or raw material expenses can be reduced to a great extent as no cubicle or extra walls required to segregate the different departments or classes.

Additionally

, open

plan

has proven to be helpful in improving coordination among teams. People will be able to communicate better with other

team

members when there will be no physical barrier between them.

In other words

, one need not to leave the seat in order to do the small talk with a colleague. In my opinion,

although

this

plan

has some minor disadvantages, I consider

this

as a positive development. I agree that few people find it hard to concentrate on the work while working in an open design, because discussion of other

team

members may distract them.

However

,

this

problem is rare as not everybody has concentration problems. Contrary to

this

, open design is helpful in

team

building by bringing the workers closer. In conclusion, in open

plan

offices, concentration issues may be there for a few employees.

However

, in my opinion, reduced infrastructure cost and improved

team

coordination far outweigh these minor drawbacks.