Screens & Partitions

Screens and Partitions

Open-plan floors trade privacy and quiet for flexibility and floor space. Screens are how you claw some of that back without building walls. NXP stocks 21 screens and partitions from Boyd, Knight and others, split between desk-mounted screens and freestanding partitions, with five lines locally made.

Sound or sight: decide which problem you are solving

This is the question to answer before looking at anything else, because the two jobs need different products and people routinely buy the wrong one.

Visual privacy stops people seeing your screen or catching your eye. Almost any partition does this, including perspex and slatted timber. It is what you want between facing desks, at a reception counter, or to stop a walkway sightline running straight across someone's monitor.

Acoustic control is a different thing entirely, and it is the more common complaint in open-plan offices. It needs a screen with mass and a soft, porous surface — the fabric and felt-faced screens here, not perspex or slats. A hard screen will reflect sound rather than absorb it, and can make a space marginally worse rather than better.

Be realistic about what any screen can do acoustically. A desk screen reduces the directness of nearby speech and takes the edge off a room; it does not soundproof anything. For confidential conversations you need a room, not a partition. Where noise is genuinely the problem, screens work best combined with soft flooring and something absorbent on the ceiling or walls.

Height is the specification that decides whether it works

Get this wrong and the screen is decoration. Match the height to the posture you are screening.

• Below-desk screens, around 440mm high, mount under the desktop. They are modesty panels rather than privacy screens — they hide legs, bags and cables, which matters at reception, in client-facing areas and increasingly on video calls.
• Low desk screens, roughly 400mm above the desktop, break the direct sightline between people sitting opposite each other while keeping the floor open and collaborative. This is the default for a team that talks to each other all day.
• Tall desk screens, around 600mm above the desktop, give a seated person real visual privacy and a noticeably calmer field of view. Better for concentrated work, worse for spontaneous conversation.
• Freestanding partitions at 1500–1800mm block sightlines for people standing and walking, which is the only way to screen circulation routes or divide a room into zones.

One trap worth naming: if your floor has sit-stand desks, a 400mm desk screen gives no privacy at all the moment someone raises their desk. Screen the standing posture, or accept that the screen only works half the time.

Desk-mounted or freestanding

Desk-mounted screens clamp to the desktop or fix below it. They take no floor space, they move with the desk, and they are the cheaper option per workstation. They are the right answer for banks of desks and back-to-back pods.

Freestanding partitions stand on the floor on their own feet. They cost more and occupy floor area, but they are not tied to a desk, so they can define a quiet corner, screen a walkway, hide a printer or storage zone, or split a large room into two functional spaces. They also move without touching the furniture, which suits floors that get reconfigured.

Slatted screens and what the angle means

The Knight Studio Divide screens use timber slats set at a stated angle within a frame — 30, 90 or 150 degrees — and the angle is a genuine functional choice, not a style option.

90 degrees sets the slats square to the frame. The screen reads as open when you look straight through it and progressively closes as you move off-axis. It is the balanced choice, and the one to pick if the screen is approached from both sides.

30 and 150 degrees angle the slats, so the screen is open from one direction and visually closed from the other. They are mirror images of each other. Use them where you want people on one side to keep an outlook — toward a window, or across the floor — while people on the other side see a solid surface. Choose the angle by which side needs the privacy, and note that a pair of opposite angles can be alternated for a woven effect down a long run.

Slatted screens divide space and read as architecture rather than office furniture, which is why they suit reception areas and client-facing zones. What they do not do is absorb sound — the gaps that make them attractive also let noise straight through.

Pinnable screens and counter barriers

Some fabric partitions are pinnable on both faces, which quietly turns a divider into working wall space — project boards, schedules, drawings, anything a team wants visible. In a room short of wall, that is two useful surfaces per screen. Where you want a dedicated surface instead, cork boards do the job better.

Perspex counter-top barriers are a different product for a different place: service counters, reception desks and anywhere staff deal with the public across a surface. The versions with a cut-out let documents, cards and goods pass through while the barrier stays in place. Being clear, they preserve eye contact and lip-reading, which matters for accessibility at a service point.

Planning a floor

Screens work best used sparingly and deliberately. Screening every desk turns an open-plan floor into a maze of low walls that is neither private nor sociable, and it blocks the light and sightlines the layout was designed around.

A more useful approach is to identify the two or three specific problems — a walkway running past someone's monitor, a noisy zone next to a quiet one, a reception area with no separation — and screen those. Colour is worth using deliberately too: the fabrics here run from neutral linen and dark grey through to sage, sky blue and navy, and a partition is one of the few pieces of office furniture where colour costs nothing extra.

These are made-to-order commercial furniture items and typically ship within four to five days rather than same day. For a floor-wide project, talk to NXP customer care before ordering.

Frequently asked questions

Do office screens actually reduce noise?

Fabric and felt-faced acoustic screens absorb some sound and reduce the directness of nearby speech, which takes the edge off an open-plan room. They do not soundproof anything, and hard screens such as perspex or timber slats reflect sound rather than absorb it. For confidential conversations you need an enclosed room.

What height should a desk screen be?

Around 400mm above the desktop breaks the sightline between people sitting opposite while keeping the floor open; around 600mm gives a seated person real visual privacy. Below-desk screens at roughly 440mm are modesty panels for legs and cables. If you have sit-stand desks, remember a desk screen does nothing once someone stands.

What is the difference between a desk-mounted and a freestanding screen?

Desk-mounted screens clamp to or hang under the desk, take no floor space and move with the furniture, and they cost less per workstation. Freestanding partitions stand on their own feet, so they can screen a walkway, divide a room or create a quiet corner independently of any desk.

What do the slat angles on a slatted screen mean?

Slats at 90 degrees sit square to the frame, so the screen looks open head-on and closes as you move to the side. Slats at 30 or 150 degrees are angled, making the screen open from one direction and visually solid from the other — choose by which side needs the privacy.

Can screens be used as pinboards?

Some fabric partitions are pinnable on both faces, which turns a divider into two usable display surfaces for schedules, drawings or project work. Check the specification before assuming it, as not all fabric screens are pin-rated.

How many screens does an open-plan office need?

Fewer than most people install. Screening every desk creates a maze that is neither private nor sociable and blocks light. Identify the specific problems — a sightline across a walkway, a noisy zone beside a quiet one, an unscreened reception — and solve those.