For years, the direction of workplace design seemed clear: knock down the walls, open up the floorplate and create spaces designed around collaboration, visibility and interaction.

But the conversation is changing.

Privacy is making a comeback.

Not in the form of a return to corridors of cellular offices and closed doors, but through a much more considered approach to workplace design, one that recognises employees need different environments for different types of work.

In August, Mix Interiors highlighted the trend in its feature “Do not disturb: The return of office privacy”, showcasing designs that provide quieter places to work within adaptable and open-plan environments.

And the data suggests this is much more than a passing interiors trend.

The privacy problem

Hybrid working has fundamentally changed what people expect when they come into an office.

Home working gave many employees greater control over noise, interruption and their immediate environment. Returning to an open-plan office can therefore mean returning to something they had almost forgotten: distraction.

Research from Steelcase identifies privacy as the number-one thing employees say they need at work.

Perhaps even more tellingly, 50% of employees remain at their desks to take video calls, partly because suitable private spaces simply aren’t available.

For managers, the problem can be even more pronounced. Separate Steelcase research found that 69% of middle managers lack access to the privacy they need for confidential or focused work, while two-thirds identified privacy as their most important workplace need.

The challenge is no longer simply:

“How do we encourage people to collaborate?”

It’s:

“How do we give people control over when they collaborate and when they need to concentrate?”

Open plan isn’t dead. One-size-fits-all might be.

The answer isn’t necessarily to start rebuilding walls.

Research by Gensler points towards something far more interesting: workplaces offering choice.

Its research found that 65% of workers prefer open areas for working with others combined with private spaces for individual, deep-focus work.

Gensler’s 2025 Global Workplace Survey, involving more than 16,000 office workers internationally, also found employees with a high degree of choice over where and how they work are 2.5 times more likely to say their workplace supports individual and team productivity.

They’re also nearly three times more likely to describe their office as a great place to work.

Meanwhile, only 26% of workers strongly agree that their current workplace helps them do their best work.

Those figures suggest the future isn’t open or private.

It’s both.

Furniture has a much bigger role to play

This is where workplace furniture becomes particularly interesting.

Privacy doesn’t always require a room.

High-backed seating can provide visual screening. Upholstered surfaces can help manage acoustics. Booths can create semi-private meeting spaces. Screens can establish boundaries without constructing permanent walls.

A carefully positioned lounge chair can create somewhere to think. A high-backed booth can become an informal meeting room. Modular furniture can allow a space to change throughout the working day.

Furniture therefore becomes part of the architecture of the workplace.

It can help create different degrees of privacy while maintaining the openness, flexibility and collaboration businesses still value.

Four types of privacy

Importantly, workplace privacy isn’t just about reducing noise.

There are several different requirements designers need to consider:

Acoustic privacy
Being able to concentrate without noise distraction – or have a conversation without disturbing everyone around you.

Visual privacy
Reducing visual distractions and creating a greater feeling of personal space.

Territorial privacy
Giving people a temporary space they can feel ownership and control over.

Informational privacy
Providing appropriate environments for confidential conversations, video calls and sensitive information.

The best workplace furniture strategies can help address several of these simultaneously.

And there’s neuroinclusive design

The return of privacy also sits within a much wider conversation about inclusive workplaces.

Not everyone experiences an open-plan environment in the same way.

Noise, movement, lighting and constant visual stimulation can make concentration difficult for some employees. Providing different types of settings allows people to choose an environment that better suits both the task they’re undertaking and the way they work.

Rather than creating one supposedly perfect workplace, the opportunity is to create a collection of environments within one workplace.

And furniture is one of the easiest ways to establish those environments without fundamentally changing the building.

How OASIX can support the shift

At OASIX Interiors, we believe workplace furniture should respond to the way people actually use spaces.

Our manufacturing capabilities allow us to work alongside designers, architects, developers and workplace specialists to create furniture solutions tailored to individual schemes rather than forcing every project into a standard product catalogue.

That could include:

• high-backed and enclosed seating to create greater visual privacy;
• upholstered booths for informal meetings and focused conversations;
• acoustic and upholstered furniture elements;
• individual focus seating and work settings;
• modular furniture that allows spaces to be reconfigured;
• bespoke dimensions to work with challenging floorplates;
• integrated power and technology for hybrid meetings and individual working;
• material and upholstery selections appropriate for intensive commercial use; and
• furniture designed around longevity, repairability and future refurbishment.

 

Our UK team works directly with our manufacturing operation in Egypt, giving clients greater flexibility over specification, finishes, dimensions and production while maintaining commercial control over cost and programme.

It means privacy doesn’t necessarily have to be designed into the building through permanent construction.

It can be designed into the furniture.

The workplace is becoming a landscape of choice

Perhaps the biggest shift isn’t really the return of privacy at all.

It’s the end of the idea that everyone should work in exactly the same way.

The office still has an enormously important role to play in collaboration, culture and human connection. But those things need to sit alongside concentration, confidential conversations, video meetings and moments when people simply need somewhere quieter to think.

The most successful workplaces will increasingly offer both.

And that presents an exciting challenge for designers and furniture manufacturers alike:

How can we create workplaces that bring people together, without making it impossible for them to be alone?

At OASIX Interiors, we’re helping designers and clients create furniture solutions for the way people work now, and the way workplaces are continuing to evolve.

Planning a workplace or commercial interiors project? Talk to the OASIX team about bespoke furniture solutions designed around your space, your people and the way they’ll actually use it.