The New Workplace: Designing for Flexibility, Privacy, and Performance
Flexible office design is no longer about choosing between open-plan areas and enclosed spaces. Hybrid work, video calls, and remote collaboration require environments where people can meet, focus, learn, socialize, and work with privacy.
Within this ecosystem, acoustic office booths make it possible to create dedicated spaces for focused work and communication without relying on permanent partitions or giving up the benefits of an open-plan workplace.
Flexible Spaces for Different Ways of Working
One response to these new workplace dynamics is to create spaces that can adapt to different activities throughout the day. Open areas can encourage interaction and teamwork, but they should be complemented by spaces for private meetings, video calls, individual tasks, and periods of focused work.
In a study of more than 4,000 workers across 10 industries and six U.S. cities, Gensler found that 65% preferred open areas for collaboration and private spaces for individual work requiring deep focus. Although these findings reflect the U.S. context, they highlight the importance of providing different levels of openness within the same workplace.
In open-plan or high-occupancy offices, acoustics become a critical consideration. Video calls, simultaneous conversations, and informal collaboration can create interference between activities with different requirements.
Acoustic booths can be integrated into workplace planning to provide privacy, reduce the spread of speech, and create areas for focused work without fully dividing the office. However, they are not a substitute for a comprehensive acoustic strategy. Their location should be coordinated with the overall layout, circulation paths, materials, and characteristics of the space.
How to Evaluate an Acoustic Office Booth
The performance of an acoustic booth should never be taken for granted. Before specifying one, it is important to review measured acoustic performance, ventilation, thermal comfort, lighting, ergonomics, accessibility, safety, and ease of maintenance.
ISO 23351-1:2020 establishes a laboratory method for comparing how effectively an enclosure reduces the level of speech produced by a person speaking inside it. This measurement makes it easier to compare complete solutions instead of evaluating individual materials or components in isolation.
From this perspective, a booth can be understood as more than a piece of furniture. It is a form of microarchitecture: a zoning resource, infrastructure for hybrid work, and a component of activity-based workplace design.
Well-Being and Human-Centered Design
Human-centered design is also changing workplace planning and product specification. The goal is no longer simply to optimize occupancy, but to provide people with choice, control, and autonomy.
Natural light, thermal comfort, ergonomics, greenery, materials, acoustics, and the ability to choose among different settings should all be integrated into a cohesive workplace experience strategy.
According to Gensler’s 2025 Global Workplace Survey, 40% of workers prioritized access to natural light and operable windows, while 36% preferred workplaces enhanced with greenery. These findings show that workplace performance depends not only on layout, but also on the environmental quality provided to its users.
Biophilic design can contribute to more natural and enjoyable environments. Sustainability, meanwhile, requires consideration of material sourcing and durability, energy consumption, repairability, component reuse, and the impact of each product throughout its life cycle.
These two approaches can complement one another, but each should be assessed using specific, verifiable criteria.
Acoustic Booths as a Strategic Workplace Resource
For architects, facility managers, and organizations, these trends present an opportunity to create workplaces that respond to different needs for concentration, remote communication, collaboration, and privacy.
Enclosed booths can be used for video calls, individual work, or conversations requiring a higher level of privacy. Open or semi-enclosed solutions can serve as collaboration points when confidentiality is not a priority.
Choosing between these configurations depends on the activity, number of users, required level of privacy, and acoustic conditions within the office.
In this context, acoustic booths can evolve from complementary elements into strategic workplace resources. Their ability to create private, adaptable, and functional spaces helps organizations respond to new ways of working without eliminating the benefits of open environments or relying on permanent construction.
The future of the office is not about choosing between collaboration and privacy. It is about designing environments that allow people to move easily and comfortably between both.
Planning a flexible workplace? Explore Sessione’s privacy and collaboration solutions or request a quote to find the right configuration for your space.
References
Gensler Research Institute. Global Workplace Survey 2025. Methodology and general findings and summary of findings, 2025.
Pogue McLaurin, Janet. “Open or Private? It’s Time for a New Workplace Model.” Gensler, December 14, 2023.
International Organization for Standardization. ISO 23351-1:2020, Acoustics — Measurement of Speech Level Reduction of Furniture Ensembles and Enclosures — Part 1: Laboratory Method, 2020.