December 31, 2025

Booths versus Traditional Construction

Compare using booths with building permanent rooms or construction. Highlight how booths are faster to install, more cost-effective, movable and flexible, while traditional construction is slower, expensive and fixed.

Booths vs. Traditional Construction

It’s time to say the quiet part out loud: open plan offices just don’t work (or, at least not as well as we think they do). In choosing to maximize the number of employees that can fit into a space, companies sacrifice other critical elements of productive offices when they rely solely on open plans. Open offices tend to be louder, with more distractions and less privacy. This has a real impact on employees and the work they do, including:

30% reduction in collaboration between team members
14% drop in productivity due to higher noise levels

In fact, it’s estimated that the average cost of distractions in U.S. offices is more than $400 billion.

It’s no wonder that more and more companies are looking to introduce additional workspaces to their offices. Whether they’re used for quiet, deep-focus work or collaborative brainstorming and meetings, having separate spaces available to employees is one of the easiest ways to avoid the pitfalls of open office plans and create a more productive workplace.

Creating your space: Booths vs traditional construction

There are two main ways to add new rooms to an open plan office: booths or traditional construction. Both options will give you dedicated, walled-off spaces for work or meetings that are separate from the rest of the hustle and bustle. But while traditional office build-outs are the way it’s been done for ages, there are a lot of good reasons that more companies are turning to booths to make their workplaces work better. Let’s break it down:

Faster installation

From the design to building and all of the stages in between, traditional construction is a time-consuming process. Coordinating permits and tradespeople (e.g. architects, contractors, electricians, etc.) in addition to the actual labour can add weeks, if not months, between your office as it is today and the new spaces needed to get things done.

By comparison, booths are approximately 50% faster than traditional office builds. Not only are the lead times significantly shorter (5-7 weeks on average), but each booth can be professionally installed virtually anywhere in an existing office floorplan in 3-4 hours. Within a single workday, your employees will have the space they need to be more focused and productive.

Cost effective

There’s no getting around it: traditional construction is expensive. For many companies, the costs associated with building are often the number one barrier to installing new spaces in the first place. There’s a lot to consider when it comes to the budget, including labour and material costs. On average, you can expect traditional construction to set you back by $6,860 per square metres, depending on your needs.

Office booths are around 35% cheaper than traditionally constructed spaces. Each soundproof booth comes pre-fabricated with the electrical and technical components you would expect to find in a standard room, eliminating the need for multiple stakeholders in the project. Bureau booths even come with furniture, making them a one-stop solution. As an added bonus, booths are investments you get to keep. Unlike traditional construction, booths become your company’s assets and can be moved to new locations should your business ever relocate.

Flexibility

Another factor that makes traditional office construction so high stakes is the fact that, once built, you’re stuck with it. As your business needs evolve, the spaces you build can’t change along with you without significant additional investments toward remodelling and renovations. You’re also limited by factors such as building permits and the existing footprint of your office.

Booths, on the other hand, are designed with change in mind. They are fully modular, allowing you to add, subtract, and even move them with ease as needed. Coming in multiple soundproof sizes and fully equipped with A/V hookups, internet and electrical outlets, booths can function as anything your business needs them to be. And, because they only require a standard outlet to function, booths are the perfect plug-and-play solution to your office space needs.

Sustainability

Any company seeking to reduce its environmental impact will want to think twice about turning to traditional office build-outs. While a worthy investment, environmentally friendly building materials often come at a premium. Construction also comes with a lot of demolition waste – most of which is landfill bound – and produces a staggering amount of carbon emissions.

On the flip side, booths produce 45% less CO2 than traditional build-outs. Bureau booths in particular are constructed using recyclable components such as aluminum frames and tempered glass panels. Even the reinforced cardboard packaging is recyclable! What’s more, Bureau booths are designed to be energy efficient and are backed by industry-leading sustainability certifications.

All things considered, booths are one of the most efficient ways to enhance the productivity of any open plan office. Booths offer aesthetic enhancement, user comfort and privacy for a fraction of the time and price of traditional construction. If your company is ready for a workplace that actually works, using booths to provide dedicated spaces for deep-focus or team collaboration can help you get there.