A Comparison of Psychological and Work Outcomes in Open-Plan and Cellular Office Designs: A Systematic Review

What the study found

Open-plan offices were more often associated with poorer health, satisfaction and productivity-related outcomes, with noise and privacy recurring as major issues.

Limitations

Comparative literature is observational-heavy; office culture and management can confound layout effects.

Neurodesign interpretation

Open plan is not one spatial variable. It bundles visibility, density, speech exposure, control and territoriality, which is why single-cause claims are weak.

Possible design implications

Provide a portfolio of focus, collaboration and recovery settings rather than assuming openness serves all work.

Why it stays in the corpus

Retain as the strongest broad office-layout review.

Study design

Systematic review; 10,242 screened papers

Population

Office workers across 31 comparative papers

Setting

Open-plan and cellular offices

Field

Workplace design

Mechanism

Privacy, distraction, stress, social interaction

Spatial variable

Office openness, enclosure

Keywords

open plan, privacy, office, stress, productivity