What is a Huddle Space?
Not every conversation needs a meeting room.
Sometimes a couple of people just need somewhere to talk something through, share a screen or jump on a quick call. That’s exactly what a huddle space is for.
Small spaces for quick conversations
A huddle space is a small, informal area designed for a handful of people to meet and collaborate.
Importantly, it doesn’t have to be a physical room. It could be an acoustic booth, a semi-enclosed area within an open-plan office or a small dedicated meeting space.
What matters is giving people somewhere to step away from their desks for a quick conversation without occupying a larger meeting room.
Making better use of your meeting spaces
If two people are regularly booking a room designed for eight, it might be a sign that you don’t need more meeting rooms but a better mix of spaces.
Huddle spaces give smaller groups somewhere more appropriate to meet, while keeping larger rooms available for the meetings that actually need them. It’s about designing spaces around how people work rather than treating every meeting room in the same way.
What technology does a huddle space need?
The technology in a huddle space should make it easy to walk in and get started.
For hybrid meetings, that means having video conferencing available so remote participants can be brought into the conversation quickly and easily. The setup could be a dedicated Microsoft Teams room system or a BYOD solution using your own laptop.
For BYOD spaces, a single USB-C cable can keep things simple, allowing you to share content on the display while also connecting your laptop to the room’s camera, microphone and speakers for video calls. Plug in, share your screen or join the meeting, without having to work out which cables or controls you need.
It’s the kind of simplicity we aim for when designing huddle spaces at AuDeo: enough technology to deliver a good hybrid experience, without making a quick meeting unnecessarily complicated.
Acoustics also need to be considered. In compact spaces, glass and other hard surfaces can quickly create an echo chamber. The right acoustic treatment helps conversations sound natural for people in the space and those joining remotely.
Ultimately, the technology should almost disappear into the background. For a space designed around quick conversations, connecting to it should be just as quick.
Does your workplace need huddle spaces?
Look at how your existing meeting spaces are being used.
If larger rooms are regularly occupied by one or two people, quick conversations are happening at desks or there’s nowhere suitable to jump on a short video call, huddle spaces could fill the gap.
It’s not about having more meeting rooms. It’s about having the right spaces, with technology that makes it easy for people to connect, collaborate and bring remote participants into the conversation.
If you’re reviewing your meeting spaces or considering adding huddle spaces to your workplace, talk to AuDeo about creating spaces that make it easier for people to meet and connect.
