Knowledge sharing in the ”new office” – possibility or problem?

Our starting point in this paper is that CSCW has analyzed and conceptualized many cooperative artifacts, though never the “modern” open office space, dominating discussions of new ways of working, flexible offices and the learning organization. It is our basic suspicion that many of the ideas behind such office design are contradicting to how CSCW views cooperation as basis for learning and knowledge sharing, and hence counterproductive to the ideas as such. The paper will discuss how this happens. The paper is based on a number of empirical studies of office space and office buildings, and it will draw on examples from these studies when necessary . Furthermore, the paper will draw on our own experimental design of an open flexible office, where prototype technologies are deployed to extend cooperation.