This paper reports a study that uses space syntax theories and techniques to develop a model explaining how spatial layouts, through their effects on movement and visible co-presence, may affect face-to-face interaction in offices. While several previous space syntax studies have shown that spatial layouts have significant effects on movement and face-to-face interaction in offices, none has investigated the relations among movement, visible co-presence, and face-to-face interaction in offices with significantly different layouts. Based on statistical analyses of the spatial and behavioral data collected at four moderately large offices, this study shows that spatial layouts have consistent effects on movement, but inconsistent effects on visible copresence and face-to-face interaction; that visible co-presence, not movement, is an important predictor of face-to-face interaction; that movement has negligible effects on the relationship between visible co-presence and face-to-face interaction; and that functional programs have little or no effect on the culture of face-to-face interaction in these offices. Limitations of the research design for workplace study and implications of the research findings for workplace design and management are discussed.

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Research on the enabling factors of innovation has focused on either the social component of organizations or on the spatial dimensions involved in the innovation process. But no one has examined the aggregate consequences of the link from spatial layout, to social networks, to innovation. This project enriches our understanding of how innovation works especially in highly innovative organizations by exploring the social dimensions of innovation as they are embedded in a specific spatial milieu. Workspace layout generates spatial boundaries that divide and reunite built space. These boundaries create relations of accessibility and visibility that integrate or segregate behaviors, activities, and people. As built space structures patterns of circulation, copresence, coawareness, and encounter in an organization, these interrelationships become fundamental to the development of social networks, especially those networks critical to the innovation process. This article presents a review of the knowledge bases of social network and spatial layout theories, and reports on a preliminary study of the effects of spatial layout on the formation and maintenance of social network structure and the support of innovation.