A Phone Booth is a telephone booth, for open-space offices, to make calls or video calls with privacy and without background noise.

According to our experience in the last years, we will share how to choose the best place to place one or more Phone Booths.

Placing a Phone Booth less than 50cm from your desks is too close. Placing it on another floor, in the copy room, or in the cafeteria is too far.

The ideal is to balance this distance between the Phone Booth and the workstations, so that is less than 20 seconds walking distance.

We want to make it a healthy habit to get up, and walk a few metres to break the routine of sitting to long. But if it’s too far away, or on another floor, it’s going to be an obstacle to more use.

In some offices, there are corners or unused areas.

Typically, these are dead zones which are too small to be a workplace and are still of little use.

If in your office, there is one of these cases, and it is less than 20 seconds walking distance away from most desks, it is probably the best place.

There are two main concepts.

• a) Centralize Phone Booths
• b) Distributing Phone Booths

a) Centralizing Phone Booths – In a small office, with a common open-space area, it may be a good idea to have the Phone Booths in the same area, which creates a habit for the users, who already know where they are, and if one of them is busy, they immediately have another Phone Booth available.

This strategy can make even more sense when there are unused rooms or areas.

b) Distributing the Phone Booths – In larger offices, we want to distribute the Phone Booths, so that each user has access within 20 seconds of walking distance.

This scenario is ideal when we are talking about different floors for different users.

To fit naturally and contribute to the good looks of the workspace, the booths should be against a wall, since the back panel contains a fan and an outlet which is aesthetically unattractive.

Acoustically, it also ends up being more favorable, since the slight noise of the fan follows against the wall.

In this way, the door faces the viewer from the front, which improves visibility and management of use.

When Phone Booths are visible from our seat at the desk, it improves the user experience, who can tell before leaving the seat whether they will have a free Phone Booth or not.

If they are hidden, the user may not want to risk getting up, only to get there and the Phone Booth is occupied.

• Wi-fi

The Booth has to be installed in an area with the good network coverage.
The wifi signal is not broken by the booth, but as most of the usage is for video calls, it is important to have a strong signal.

• Electricity

The Cabin only needs one power outlet available within a 1-meter radius.
The installation method is the same as a computer monitor – you just have a standard plug to connect.

• Confirm Dimensions

It is essential to confirm the measurements of the Phone Booth and ensure that the access conditions of the space are good to facilitate its transportation.

We always help our clients with these decisions when necessary. In our meetings we end up clarifying most of the doubts that exist in each office.

If you have any questions, we can arrange a meeting, showroom in Lisbon, you can send an email to hello@offcoustic.com or you can call or send whatsapp to +351 912 131 176.

We will be happy to help and be challenged to create more space for calls in your office.