Movement in workplace environments – configurational or programmed?

In countless case studies space syntax research has found that the configuration of a spatial system offers a powerful explanation to movement flows. However, this relationship is restricted for complex buildings where movement cannot be assumed as random since there may also be a programme that requires specific actions and interactions. A distinction has to be made here according to the nature of the organisation occupying a building: a strong programme building where the interaction and co-presence of people is highly controlled may not allow movement flows to follow configuration. In contrast, a weak programme building with an all-play-all interface might be expected to experience more randomised movement patterns increasing the significance of configuration as determining factor. Though being useful, these assumptions lack the power to fully explain real life movement flows in workplace environments for two reasons: firstly, most workplace environments follow neither purely strong nor simply weak programmes, they lie in-between the two poles and comprise aspects of both systems. Secondly, configuration considered as the crucial cause of movement in an office may even be limited for weak programmes due to the effects exerted by everyday attractors such as the coffee machine, the watercooler or the photocopier, toilets or the building entrances. This paper explores different strategies for explaining observed movement patterns, among them axial and segment analysis. It aims at an in-depth analysis of strong and weak programme aspects in order to find ways of understanding office movement patterns. The data used stems from two case studies representing those ‘in-between’ settings: a university school and a research organisation hosting theoretical physicists. The results suggest that movement in these workplaces may be reflected best by a metric analysis, as opposed to urban movement that follows angularity patterns. Distances seem to matter most in small and well known spaces. Moreover, it can be shown that flows of people can only be explained through configuration whenever it is possible to exclude attractor driven movement. On this basis a new approach is suggested that combines configuration based integration measures with attractor based ones in order to predict actual movement flows in offices

Functional renormalization group for quantized anharmonic oscillator

Functional renormalization group methods formulated in the real-time formalism are applied to the $O(N)$ symmetric quantum anharmonic oscillator, considered as a $0+1$ dimensional quantum field-theoric model, in the next-to-leading order of the gradient expansion of the one- and two-particle irreducible effective action. The infrared scaling laws and the sensitivity-matrix analysis show the existence of only a single, symmetric phase. The field-independent term of the wavefunction renormalization turned out to be negligible, but its field-dependent piece is noticeable. It is shown that the infrared limits of the running couplings depend on the renormalization group scheme used, when the perturbation expansion in the bare quartic coupling is truncated keeping the terms up to the second order.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figure

Spatiality and transpatiality in workplace environments

It is widely considered that the physical layout of workplace environments has an influence on social interaction and therefore the social structure of an organisation. However, there is little accordance among scholars from different disciplines on exactly how the relationship between space and organisation is constituted. Empirical studies often come to different conclusions: for example, on the influence of an open-plan office on communication patterns among staff, as many studies report increases as report decreases or unchanged communication behaviours. This evidence-base is further confused since few studies make a link between a profound spatial and an organisational analysis. We suggest that the inconsistency of results is for two main reasons: first, methodologies for operationalising variables differ significantly with each study tending to analyse a distinct notion of a phenomenon. This makes further comparative conclusions and predictive modelling problematic. Second, even where the same methods are used, contradictory evidence emerges, where one organisation reacts differently to another to similar spatial conditions. This suggests that, at the core of the problem, lies an apparent lack of understanding of the nature of the space-organisation relationship. This paper explores these phenomena by drawing on the results of various case studies conducted over the last few years in diverse organisational settings (a university, a research institute, and in corporate media companies). Two main lines of argument will be developed: first we will show that some influences of space on organisational behaviour seem to be generic. Understanding of these generic influences may be used to design spaces enhancing interaction and knowledge flow for any type of organisation. Second, we outline how organisations depend on context, culture and character, and may react to similar spatial configurations in a unique way. We will suggest why this may be the case, referring to Hillier and Hanson's notion of spatial and transpatial modes of social cohesion. The two underlying theoretical concepts, i.e. space as 'generic function' and spatial versus transpatial operations will be discussed concerning their application to, and meaningfulness for, workplace environments. Finally, inferences are drawn for the practice of evidence-based design

The performance of space – exploring social and spatial phenomena of interaction patterns in an organisation.

It is often proposed that the design of the physical workplace influences social interaction and therefore organisational behaviour in one way or the other. Yet there is little accordance among scholars on how exactly the relationship between the social space and the social structure of an organisation is constituted. In order to explore this relationship, we combine an interpretive, phenomenological approach with a correlational, syntactic approach. Using the example of a workplace environment studied on multiple layers as well as in detail we propose that physical space influences the formation of social structure and organisational behaviour in manifold, but analytically tractable ways. The application of qualitative and quantitative methods in tandem proves fruitful for understanding the complex phenomena that characterise the emergence of organisational culture

Differential Renormalization-Group Approach to the Layered sine-Gordon Model

New qualitative picture of vortex length-scale dependence has been found in recent electrical transport measurements performed on strongly anisotropic BSCCO single crystals in zero magnetic field. This indicates the need for a better description of the 3D/2D crossover in vortex dimensionality. The vortex-dominated properties of high transition temperature superconductors with extremely high anisotropy (layered systems) are reasonably well described in the framework of the layered XY model which can be mapped onto the layered sine-Gordon model. For the latter we derive an exact renormalization group (RG) equation using Wegner's and Houghton's approach in the local potential approximation. The agreement of the UV scaling laws find by us by linearizing the RG equations with those obtained previously in the literature in the dilute gas approximation makes the improvement appearant which can be achieved by solving our RG equations numerically.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, to be published in Philos. Ma

Asymptotic safety in the sine-Gordon model

In the framework of the functional renormalization group method it is shown that the phase structure of the 2-dimensional sine-Gordon model possesses a nontrivial UV fixed point which makes the model asymptotically safe. The fixed point exhibits strong singularity similarly to the scaling found in the vicinity of the infrared fixed point. The singularity signals the upper energy-scale limit to the validity of the model. We argue that the sine-Gordon model with a momentum-dependent wavefunction renormalization is in a dual connection with the massive sine-Gordon model.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure