Cognitive Science
How minds process information: attention, working memory, cognitive load, task switching, interruption and recovery. For workplace strategy, its central relevance is the cognition of knowledge work — what focus actually requires and what environments do to it.
The most robust workplace-relevant findings in any domain sit here: interruption carries measurable resumption costs, task switching degrades performance, irrelevant speech disrupts verbal working memory, and sustained attention requires protection. These findings are the scientific spine of focus provision — the evidence chain behind every enclosure requirement.
- What does concentrated knowledge work cognitively require?
- What do interruption and background speech actually cost?
- Why is intermittent speech more disruptive than steady noise?
- How long does attention take to recover, and what supports recovery?
- Cognitive psychology literature on attention, interruption and task switching
- The irrelevant-speech-effect research programme
- Field studies of interruption in knowledge work (e.g. Mark et al.)
- Cognitive load theory
Focus settings specified for speech privacy, not just sound level — intelligible speech is the disruptor; interruption norms treated as seriously as interruption acoustics; task-switching costs reflected in setting adjacency and daily rhythm design.
Kit of Parts
The definition of the complete workplace setting system — every setting type, its purpose, quantity, requirements and behavioural logic — from focus and team settings to hospitality, wellbeing and specialist environments.
Architectural Guidance
The translation of the concept and kit into design-governing guidance: spatial, environmental, acoustic, lighting, thermal, biophilic, accessibility, technology and identity requirements the design team must satisfy.
Dynamics Assessment
A structured workforce assessment capturing reported People and Process demand: work patterns, activities, locations, preferences, experience and reported occupancy.
Targeted Insights
Focused mixed-method investigations that explain specific contradictions the broad evidence has surfaced but cannot resolve.
Deploying pop-neuroscience ('the brain can't multitask') as design justification while ignoring the actual applicable findings, or claiming precise productivity percentages from cognitive effects that were measured in laboratory tasks.
Cognition under hybrid conditions — video-call load, digital interruption ecology, attention across home and office contexts — is a fast-moving literature without settled conclusions.