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A cubicle -- desk forms a Systems Furniture workstation with the five or six foot high partitions that separate it from the neighbors. There are no stand-alone supports for the main work surfaces, or the shelves around them. Everything is connected to the wall partitions. This prevents occupants re-designing the workspace and removing the design features of Cubicle Level Protection. Like the older carrel desk, fourteenth century, it blocks side or peripheral vision to prevent the worker having their concentration broken by nearby detectable movement.

If you visit the sites of manufacturers you will note that the protected workstation in the cubicle is positioned in a corner so that the worker's back is toward the entry. The area behind a worker is a safe zone. This means that the converging walls block peripheral vision. Not all jobs require this protection.

Unlike the modular desk of the middle of the 20th century a cubicle is intentionally built so that it can be assembled only one way. Manufacturers do not provide inter-change-ability with products of others.

Herman Miller Inc. introduced the first protected workstation, the Action Office One, in 1964. Steelcase introduced the Steelcase 9000. Robert Propst, designer and inventor for Herman Miller Inc, denies that he is the father of the cubicle. As quiet office machines were created high walls were no longer necessary. New designs eliminate the walls completely. Designers learned to protect the worker, not the space.

Bad planning and cheap approaches

The cubicle desk is a much reviled and often mocked piece of office furniture in large part because of the expectations it provokes but rarely fulfills. Workers complain of the confinement but do not understand why cubicle design is necessary.

The versatile cubicle walls

On the positive side the cubicle desk offers an occasion for customization by its users which is not comparable to other desk forms. The secret is that it can transform all of the walls surrounding the white-collar worker into productive work surfaces, or nooks for personal expression. Small companies have stepped in to produce pen holders, magazine racks, and other items which are made for cubicles.

Note that it is also possible to create protected workspace without using cubicles by combining traditional free standing desks with free standing partitions. The risk there is that a defective design will be created allowing threat movement in Subliminal Peripheral Vision to cause repeating, subliminal, Peripheral Vision Reflexes in at-risk workers, knowledge workers. This can happen in homes, dorms, and small business offices with computer workstations. This kind of environment is often part of a general office landscaping effort which was popularized in the 1950s and the 1960s in Germany and the United Kingdom.

Explorations of the cubicle form

Between 2000 and 2002 IBM partnered with Steelcase, the office furniture manufacturer and did some very thorough research on the software, hardware and ergonomic aspects of the cubicle of the future (or the office of the future) under the name "BlueSpace". They produced several prototypes of this hi-tech multi screened workspace and even exhibited one at Walt Disney World. BlueSpace offered movable multiple screens inside and outside, a projection system, advanced individual lighting heating and ventilation controls and a host of software applications to orchestrate everything.

New designs which use central power and data cables suspended from poles allow the workstation to be moved to suit each new project without breaking those required connections. Cubicle Level Protection is provided by eliminating the traffic aisle beside the worker rather than blocking the subliminal view of that traffic.

Not all innovative designs require the efforts of celebrities or monster corporations. In 1994 the designer Douglas Ball planned and built several iterations of the "Clipper" or "CS-1", a "capsule" desk looking like the streamlined front fuselage of a fighter plane. Meant as a computer workstation it had louvers and an integrated ventilation system, as well as a host of built-in features typical of the Ergonomic desk. An office space filled with these instead of traditional squarish cubicles would look like a hangar filled with small flight simulators. It was selected for the permanent design collection of the design Museum in the United Kingdom.

See also the list of desk forms and types.

References

• Adams, Scott.What do you call a sociopath in a cubicle? : (answer, a coworker) Kansas City, Missouri. : Andrews McMeel Pub., 2002.
• Duffy, Francis. Colin Cave. John Worthington, editors. Planning Office Space. London: The Architectural Press Ltd., 1976.
• Inkeles, Gordon. Ergonomic Living: How to Create a User-Friendly Home and Office. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
• Klein, Judy Graf. The Office Book. New York: Facts on File Inc., 1982.
• VisionAndPsychosis.Net "The Modern Cubicle"