Corporate space consolidation and the need to upgrade the employee experience will keep the office market fairly strong for the next 18 months before the sector taps the brakes. "I don't think it will be anything dramatic, but I think there will be a leveling," says Dennis Cornick, EVP, Gilbane Building Company. Construction costs and a slackening demand for space built on spec will dampen the market, he says. In the last year, open office design has come under attack by Harvard Business School. Recent HBS studies found that when employees moved from a traditional office setting to an open office, collaboration actually declined. Many workers plugged wireless devices in their ears to tune out office noise-and their co-workers. The studies have prompted designers and real estate decision makers to rethink the open-office trend. "I've heard different opinions from different clients," says Cornick. Some open office projects have been successful, he says; others have not fostered the expected level of collaboration. Nonetheless, he says, "The drive for more collaboration and teamwork is almost a universal desire."
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