Team space is an alternative office design to support the activities of highly interactive teams. The design often provides
individual workspaces for private, concentrated work combined with nearby shared open spaces that support group work.
Lechner (2012) provided three ways to restructure the office space to better support people work together — varying the types of
workspaces, providing the right tools and giving project teams a dedicated space. Among various types of communication for
team work, face-to-face communication has the advantage of providing direct contact with people as well as the presence of all
the non-verbal cues such as facial expression, gestures, body language, tone of voice, presence of other people and room noise.
“If there is something missing in the person's words, there are other cues that will complement the message, if they are congruent
with the words. The message will be more complete and clear when all cues are present” (Face to Face Communication, 2010).
Wolfeld (2010) conducted a survey to investigate the effects of the workplace characteristics of integration, physical distance and visibility on impromptu interactions and three outcome measurements (job satisfaction, productivity and organizational
commitment). The survey results supported the significant positive relationship between accessibility and frequency of
interactions, and showed that informal and unplanned interactions were positively correlated (though not significantly) with all
three outcome measures. He recommended that office layout be designed to foster informal, impromptu interactions and thus
encourage face-to-face interactions. There are two ways to increase the probability of impromptu interactions and ease of
communication within an office — movement control and spatial interconnectedness (including distance between employees,
employee visibility and employee location).