Home Office - Design
I've been thinking long and hard about potential home office designs now that I'll be spending more time working from home.
There's a lot of research in Industrial Organizational psychology and ergonomics that address more corporate settings (especially research on how people working in factories can be made more efficient... a lot of stuff about flourescent lighting, etc).
However, there does not exist much solid work in how people, given free reign, personalize their space to be more effective, happy, safe, etc.
So I'm starting to compile my own notes and am embarking on doing some interviews with home office/studio/workshop bound folks to see if there are any interesting patterns.
I created this model as a dollhouse for my own workspace. Currently, I am not at all happy with my present layout, so I'm looking to shake things up by physically changing my environment.
A challenge for this room is the large window that makes for terrible monitor glare in the afternoon (west facing). I've resolved that this might actually be OK because I am the least effective in mid-late afternoon, so that might be a cue to shift my work so that I'm pretty much done with any computer stuff by that time.
I'm looking at a 4 monitor + projector setup, piping my entire sound and media system through an amplifier (broadcasting out a transmitter I hacked together that covers at least my shower and bedroom... I'm also seriously investigating MythTV or Snapstream as a way to do tv sharing), and X10 automation. Lots of servers and boxes doing various jobs. (I'm a geek... leave me alone).
With all these electronics, heat becomes a serious issue. I currently use a different, smaller room as my home office and it gets so hot in there that I get headaches unless I have 3 fans blasting at me. This new room seems to circulate air a little better and the windows tend to regulate the temperature a bit better.
Furthermore, this room has some sound insulation issues; I'm actually ok with external sound, but my housemates may not appreciate my blasting Nine Inch Nails at 4:00AM.
Finally, I'd like to add some interior design to this layout; currently the room is stark, just-moved-in white and is completely lacking in inviting accoutrements.
I'll continue posting pictures and updates as I get this set up... I want this done ASAP and with as little expense as necessary so I can move on and get to work.
