Plans — An American-style office and a Japanese-style office

The two plans compare how workspace is typically arranged in an American-style office and in a Japanese-style one.

Overall, the American layout is divided into enclosed and partitioned spaces that give employees privacy, whereas the Japanese office is a single open area in which managers sit among their staff. Both are entered from the south and have windows to the north.

In the American office, the northern end is taken up by three rooms: the manager's office in the north-west corner, the deputy manager's office beside it and a meeting room to the east. The central area houses twelve cubicles, arranged in two blocks of six and separated by partitions. Along the south wall, a photocopier and a reception desk stand west of the entrance, with a coffee area in the south-east corner.

The Japanese office has no internal walls. The department manager's desk is positioned centrally by the northern windows, with three section heads in front of it, each seated at the head of a block of six desks where staff face one another in two rows. This makes eighteen staff desks, half as many again as the American cubicles. The photocopier is in the same place, but the reception desk and coffee area give way to a meeting table and lockers.