Architecture is (applied) art. It is created for people to perceive and use it. Psychology, on the other hand, is the study of human experience and behavior.

In any organization, human resources are the main factor and promoting their productivity is essential to achieve success of the organization.

The working environment is another important factor too, and the importance of creating an effective environment for human resources is emphasized nowadays. In fact, the workplace has a direct relation to increase or decrease the organizational performance. So today designers and architects have become interested in making office spaces pleasant; using natural elements, continuity of design and color, diversity and intelligent use of furniture that can be seen in many successful projects today.

There are factors that if they go unnoticed in the design of the workplace, organizational work will not be done properly and they will face a decrease in returns.

Architecture is a science-based profession considered to solve a problem.

Designing buildings and other physical environments must act in accordance with human personalities and characteristics and be suitable and useful for them.The most important thing that should be considered during designing is the interaction between people and the environment.

A lot of time in every human’s life is spent in spaces created by man and architecture has a key role in the formation of human psychology (Pakzad & Bozorg, 2014).

If the working environment is well designed, it leads to employee satisfaction, sense of ownership and belonging, qualitative and quantitative increase in work, cooperation, staff participation and association and ultimately, job satisfaction. Comfort may be functional, but job satisfaction needs intelligent design. One of the most important factors in environmental psychology of workplace is to check out the spaces according to satisfaction, comfortable performance (comfort), and production (achievement); so, if a person is satisfied in the workplace, his performance is good and his career achievement is positive, as a result.

Formal Offices

Formal offices are generally divided into two categories, namely conventional offices with separate rooms and open offices.

Research has shown that due to lack of physical territory in offices with open plan (open offices), employees make a new immutable territory to feel more comfortable; for example, they sit behind one desk every day, they use one monitor or they hang their coats in one place every day. Although open offices encourage staff to more participation and teamwork, these offices are stressful because people can conveniently access to information of each other, there is a lot of noise, and they stimulate a defensive manner in people.

Employees have more personal control over their work space in conventional offices. This kind of office has positive results in some ways such as less distraction, better performance, less stress, decision-making on an individual basis and ultimately, more satisfaction with the work environment. However, one of its negative points is lack of participation with others. Researchers believe that ability to see without being seen is a natural need that satisfies personnel in an office. Moreover, some research has studied personnel’s manner of sitting in offices and found that people tend to sit across each other when competing; but they tend to sit next to each other when cooperating with each other. They also tend to sit around the corner when talking to each other.

conventional offices