(Full disclosure, I work for The Lighting Quotient)
A generally overlooked factor in the open plan is lighting. When you dump a bunch of desks under a grid of 2x4 troffers or direct/indirect pendants, it becomes a very impersonal space. And the employees all know their offices went away as a cost cutting measure, the "promoting synergy" talk isn't fooling anybody.
One of our product lines is Tambient (contraction of task and ambient), a series of light fixtures that take all the lights out of the ceiling and attaches the general lighting to the office furniture. It won't solve noise problems, but having a light that's yours gives back some ownership of your personal space. It gives you personal dimming too, so you have some control over your environment instead of dealing with whatever the overhead pendant wants to do to your area (and the 8 adjacent desks).
Really energy efficient, works with benching or panel based systems (we even have one that mounts to VESA arms), and looks great too. A couple of pictures and our quick start guide for reference:
A generally overlooked factor in the open plan is lighting. When you dump a bunch of desks under a grid of 2x4 troffers or direct/indirect pendants, it becomes a very impersonal space. And the employees all know their offices went away as a cost cutting measure, the "promoting synergy" talk isn't fooling anybody.
One of our product lines is Tambient (contraction of task and ambient), a series of light fixtures that take all the lights out of the ceiling and attaches the general lighting to the office furniture. It won't solve noise problems, but having a light that's yours gives back some ownership of your personal space. It gives you personal dimming too, so you have some control over your environment instead of dealing with whatever the overhead pendant wants to do to your area (and the 8 adjacent desks).
Really energy efficient, works with benching or panel based systems (we even have one that mounts to VESA arms), and looks great too. A couple of pictures and our quick start guide for reference:
http://thelightingquotient.com/files/portfolio/OpenPlanOffic...
http://thelightingquotient.com/files/portfolio/OpenPlanOffic...
http://thelightingquotient.com/files/portfolio/OpenPlanOffic...
http://www.flipdocs.com/showbook.aspx?ID=10014685_237854
I'm more on the engineering side so I don't have the whole sales pitch down, but I'm happy to answer questions if you're interested.