Last week, we took a look at a Haworth paper about workplace privacy. As a follow on, you might enjoy this companion paper on The Impact of Architectural Privacy Features on Performance Stress and Informal Learning. It refers to many of the same studies, but has an emphasis on how employees learn and interact. One interesting finding is that employees value more than just high cubicle panels around their own workstation. Many also advocate panels at least 50 inches high around collaborative group workspaces. This makes sense if you consider the often undifferentiated landscape of the typical open office. On those occasions when coworkers do get together to collaborate, they still want to have a sense of being brought together by the architecture of their meeting space. They don’t necessarily need a conference room, but a cluster of furniture with panels around the perimeter at least serves to keep everyone focused. Higher panels that include acoustic shielding can also help reduce distractions to those working outside the group.