How does environment and facilities influence people during team work? – The design of a multifunctional desk to enhance creativity

Abstract: Creativity and innovation are two forces that impel industries. Product design is often assigned to a team consisting of members from different backgrounds. To support the collaboration, there are many special places built for creativity and innovation, referred to as “creative space” in this thesis. Doing the project in a well-designed creative space can enhance creativity and productivity.However, most creative spaces are still using the facilities and furniture from common conference rooms, even though they are built for other purposes. Due to different working modes, the conference room does not suit for group design processes. It is still not widely accepted that what features the creative space should have to enhance the creativity.In order to design the creative space that meets the needs of the design teams, research has been done to identify the influencing factors that impact creativity. Based on these factors, observations and interviews are also carried out to analyze the influencing factors and gather data. The general concept and final solution is generated based on all the researches.As a result of this thesis, the prototype of a creative desk is carried out at the end. Some fundamental researches and discussions about the creativity stimulation are also analyzed to shed some light on this research field.