(The office was finished early this year) Here are some of the ideas I was working with specifically for making developer work spaces (This space is for a very

(The office was finished early this year) Here are some of the ideas I was working with specifically for making developer work spaces (This space is for a very fast growing but financially mature business - not a cash-strapped startup. My primary advice for a startup office space: buy DOORS for desks!. You can get doors at home depot for desks - hollow core nice wood without the door handles drilled out for just over $10 apiece. Put the doors on top of file cabinets, and voila, you have a nice looking desk at very low cost that can last for years if you like.): From the hackers perspective: +Each space had to have natural light and views, but be closable for privacy. The point here is to allow for staring into the distance when the subconscious is cranking on an idea, allow the space to be closed during moments of extreme focus, and to have the doors be a sign to others which mode the person is in at the time. +Each space had to allow for a small conference of 2-3 people for easy and impromptu discussions. +Each space had to have a lot of attention to detail and materials to make the spaces feel personal. +There had to be a space for larger meeting outside of the formal business conference room. I turned the lunch-room into one of the key design spaces and put whiteboards all along one wall with data ports for easy discussions and to make having lunch more fun. (The company provides free lunch every day) +The developer area had to be acoustically protected from the back office area, the customer relations area and the accounting area to avoid concentration disruptions. +The space was in a classic old building with exposed wood beams and ceilings, so we used a raised floor system (with no sign to the user that it's raised) to have all the heating/cooling provided from the floor and allow for easy addition and movement of data and power ports. +The server room was treated as a "jewel" with wall to wall glass for people (especially hackers) to appreciate the racks of technology at their fingertips. (Also, the servers had multiple power back up systems including generators, a fire suppression system that would not damage the equipment in case it was used, and its own cooling system to run at ideal temperatures with a lot of extra rack space to allow for easy growth.) From Management's Perspective: +The space had to be flexible to allow for reconfiguration and potentially moving out to another space in the future.