4 ms·

The best office I've experienced (but sadly only visited for two week, the branch I worked at had typical open plan garbage) had the building split into section

The best office I've experienced (but sadly only visited for two week, the branch I worked at had typical open plan garbage) had the building split into sections where along both sides were small single-person offices (large enough that two people could sit at a desk and work, or 3 to 4 people could sit for a meeting) with closing sliding doors. In the space between the two rows of offices was a small amount of hot-desk space (maybe 6 to 8 desks), some armchairs and sofas and a conference table with projector. The layout was basically: +--+--+--+--+--+ | | | | | | +- +- +- +- +- + | |HHHH CCC ####| | +- +- +- +- +- + | | | | | | +--+--+--+--+--+ Where H was the hotdesk space, C the casual sofas/armchairs with coffee tables, and # the conference table with projector against the wall on one end. Not drawn to scale, of course.

floren 7y ago
This is my favorite kind of setup. I call it the "Unix Room" model, because it's sort of like what I saw at Bell Labs: Private offices for staff, but people would also work in an open area often (it helped that they just had terminals scattered around and you could sit at any one of them). I've worked in such an environment and loved it, but of course it costs more space than any of the other alternatives.
- dkersten 7y ago
  Yeah, it really was the best of both worlds. People tended to keep their doors open to signal it was ok to interrupt them, but if they needed to get work done, they just close the doors. People also spent a lot of time in the center areas, when it made sense to do so, eg when they were doing something that could be done in a more relaxed environment, or to brainstorm or chat with others.
  - whalabi 7y ago
    Letting people choose how they work, how revolutionary!
madhadron 7y ago
I've had this setup in academic environments a few times, and it's wonderful.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Lots of grad student offices are like this. We may have the money, but they have the workspace.
  - dijit 7y ago
    Seems like we should be able to trade some of our money for this. I’d be surprised to learn it was less productive too. Any company would surely go for this.
erik_seaberg 7y ago
That looks so much like https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Workshop_design https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Workshop_desi... that I kinda want potential employers to start publishing their office designs as Dwarf Fortress saves.
- dkersten 7y ago
  Hah, thanks for that! :D That would be fun, alright. Completely off topic, I just got Tarn Adams' latest book (procedural storytelling) today. I'm looking forward to reading it when I get time.
  - reificator 7y ago
    I've added that book to my list of possible reads. I must say I am actually disappointed that it doesn't appear to have been written in an algorithmic fashion.
    - dkersten 7y ago
      At a quick flip through the pages, it also doesn’t cover that much in terms of technical details, code or diagrams, but seems to be mostly a discussion of techniques and case studies. I’d personally like a more technically focused book because some of the struggles I have is that I can hack together a grammar-based system (eg an L-system) easily enough, but turning it into a production quality reasonable performance/memory system is much harder. Eg I made an L-system using a string as the data and characters as the nodes and I was doing string matching and manipulation to implement the production rules. It worked great as a little demo, but was much much too inefficient for a real system. Converting it into something more efficient was too much work for me at the time. Perhaps time I try again though! I’ll see. I have a train journey tomorrow so I’ll start reading it then :)
- beckingz 7y ago
  This would be great! Maybe a floorplan to ascii converter is needed.
oneplane 7y ago
I'm currently at an office where some of it is arranged that way but some others are perhaps more hybrid into open-office arrangements that will works pretty well: +------------+-----------+ D D | DD DD DD | DD DD DD | WWWWWWWW DD | W BBBB | W W BBBB | W W DD | W W DD DD | W W DD DD | +------------------------+ The open end is towards 'the rest' of the office, the W are walls, the B is a block that makes the rest seem like a somewhat divided area and dampens sound, has benches and TVs and whiteboards. The D's are desks, they are farther apart but it's a pain to draw them better. You generally find the same people at generally the same desk, but they can shift around as day-to-day partnering differs or if people want to sit together for other reasons. It feels much more like a 'larger' private office than an open plan office because there is plenty of blocking yet you can move freely and sit freely where it happens to makes the most sense at any given time. Silence and concentration? Most likely to happen in the bottom left desk block, want interaction and many ideas? Sit somewhere top middle. Want to have two different teams working together? 12 people can fit at the right side of the drawing, top to bottom. Yes there is a gap, but that helps give you plenty of air, carpet sound damping and room to walk around while you think. And when you do need a meeting room with projector and bean bags etc, the W-enclosed room is exactly that. The two single D-desks are mostly for people that need to sit close to us for a day or two and just want a bit of desk space. Right edge is a wall, top and bottom are windows all the way left and right. I think that it's not as much the 'best' plan, or planned to work this way, but with the people that sit there (which is always the same ~20 people in different configurations) and a small amount of 'togetherness' as a team, you don't really have any of the 'open office' annoyances while still having a lot of the working-together benefits. Without the small B-block in the middle or the large W-room it probably wouldn't work.
- dijit 7y ago
  I love this sharing. I'll share mine: +---+--------+------------------------+------------+ | | **** | STORE *** DD DD D DD | DD DD *****| | K | ___ \______*** DD DD DD | DD DD *****| | | DD \ DD D DD | DD DD | | | D D | |___| DD DD DD DDD +---+D DD DD DD | DD DD DD DD| | M | DD DD DD | M |D DD DD | DD DD DD| | | DD DD DD DDD | |D DD DD DD | DD DD DD DD| +-------------------------------------+------------+ D = Desk, M= Meeting room(s), K=Kitchen. *=elevator/toilets Nowhere to go for peace time. I figure this is the most common setup. (those desks in the aisle are facing inwards, so you can walk behind the people at them) This is one of the other floors (this is from a promotional video, so it's what the company _wants_ to portray): https://i.imgur.com/4CkI4AI.png https://i.imgur.com/4CkI4AI.png
mikelevins 7y ago
The best office I was in as very much like this. It was in the Bubb Road office of Apple's Newton team. Each person had a walled office with a door that closed, a full-length window next to the door, and an exterior window on the building's grounds. The office was just about big enough to fit two people to sit or stand in front of the whiteboard. Each half a dozen or so offices were arranged around common areas with sofas and gaming tables, and next to kitchens. We called the common areas "living rooms". Rolling whiteboards were stationed in or near the living rooms. It was close to ideal. If you needed privacy to think, you could close the door. If you were receiving visits, you could open it. If you needed contact with others, or a serious discussion, you could join people in the living room and roll in a whiteboard if it was needed. I also worked at NeXT, which had a similar arrangement, except that its common areas weren't as inviting as Newton's living rooms.
- dkersten 7y ago
  That sounds really great! I dream of working in such a place. If my next (or any, really) startup venture is successful, I will strive to create a similar space (but also I strongly believe in remote working as an option, no reason to lock yourself out of amazingly talented people just because they’re out of you geographical proximity)
Gravityloss 7y ago
I wonder how much lower salary people would accept if they got a much sparser work environment?

floren 7y ago

This is my favorite kind of setup. I call it the "Unix Room" model, because it's sort of like what I saw at Bell Labs: Private offices for staff, but people would also work in an open area often (it helped that they just had terminals scattered around and you could sit at any one of them). I've worked in such an environment and loved it, but of course it costs more space than any of the other alternatives.

dkersten 7y ago
Yeah, it really was the best of both worlds. People tended to keep their doors open to signal it was ok to interrupt them, but if they needed to get work done, they just close the doors. People also spent a lot of time in the center areas, when it made sense to do so, eg when they were doing something that could be done in a more relaxed environment, or to brainstorm or chat with others.
- whalabi 7y ago
  Letting people choose how they work, how revolutionary!

madhadron 7y ago

I've had this setup in academic environments a few times, and it's wonderful.

closeparen 7y ago
Lots of grad student offices are like this. We may have the money, but they have the workspace.
- dijit 7y ago
  Seems like we should be able to trade some of our money for this. I’d be surprised to learn it was less productive too. Any company would surely go for this.

erik_seaberg 7y ago

That looks so much like https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Workshop_design https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Workshop_desi... that I kinda want potential employers to start publishing their office designs as Dwarf Fortress saves.

dkersten 7y ago
Hah, thanks for that! :D That would be fun, alright. Completely off topic, I just got Tarn Adams' latest book (procedural storytelling) today. I'm looking forward to reading it when I get time.
- reificator 7y ago
  I've added that book to my list of possible reads. I must say I am actually disappointed that it doesn't appear to have been written in an algorithmic fashion.
  - dkersten 7y ago
    At a quick flip through the pages, it also doesn’t cover that much in terms of technical details, code or diagrams, but seems to be mostly a discussion of techniques and case studies. I’d personally like a more technically focused book because some of the struggles I have is that I can hack together a grammar-based system (eg an L-system) easily enough, but turning it into a production quality reasonable performance/memory system is much harder. Eg I made an L-system using a string as the data and characters as the nodes and I was doing string matching and manipulation to implement the production rules. It worked great as a little demo, but was much much too inefficient for a real system. Converting it into something more efficient was too much work for me at the time. Perhaps time I try again though! I’ll see. I have a train journey tomorrow so I’ll start reading it then :)
beckingz 7y ago
This would be great! Maybe a floorplan to ascii converter is needed.

oneplane 7y ago

I'm currently at an office where some of it is arranged that way but some others are perhaps more hybrid into open-office arrangements that will works pretty well: +------------+-----------+ D D | DD DD DD | DD DD DD | WWWWWWWW DD | W BBBB | W W BBBB | W W DD | W W DD DD | W W DD DD | +------------------------+ The open end is towards 'the rest' of the office, the W are walls, the B is a block that makes the rest seem like a somewhat divided area and dampens sound, has benches and TVs and whiteboards. The D's are desks, they are farther apart but it's a pain to draw them better. You generally find the same people at generally the same desk, but they can shift around as day-to-day partnering differs or if people want to sit together for other reasons. It feels much more like a 'larger' private office than an open plan office because there is plenty of blocking yet you can move freely and sit freely where it happens to makes the most sense at any given time. Silence and concentration? Most likely to happen in the bottom left desk block, want interaction and many ideas? Sit somewhere top middle. Want to have two different teams working together? 12 people can fit at the right side of the drawing, top to bottom. Yes there is a gap, but that helps give you plenty of air, carpet sound damping and room to walk around while you think. And when you do need a meeting room with projector and bean bags etc, the W-enclosed room is exactly that. The two single D-desks are mostly for people that need to sit close to us for a day or two and just want a bit of desk space. Right edge is a wall, top and bottom are windows all the way left and right. I think that it's not as much the 'best' plan, or planned to work this way, but with the people that sit there (which is always the same ~20 people in different configurations) and a small amount of 'togetherness' as a team, you don't really have any of the 'open office' annoyances while still having a lot of the working-together benefits. Without the small B-block in the middle or the large W-room it probably wouldn't work.

dijit 7y ago
I love this sharing. I'll share mine: +---+--------+------------------------+------------+ | | **** | STORE *** DD DD D DD | DD DD *****| | K | ___ \______*** DD DD DD | DD DD *****| | | DD \ DD D DD | DD DD | | | D D | |___| DD DD DD DDD +---+D DD DD DD | DD DD DD DD| | M | DD DD DD | M |D DD DD | DD DD DD| | | DD DD DD DDD | |D DD DD DD | DD DD DD DD| +-------------------------------------+------------+ D = Desk, M= Meeting room(s), K=Kitchen. *=elevator/toilets Nowhere to go for peace time. I figure this is the most common setup. (those desks in the aisle are facing inwards, so you can walk behind the people at them) This is one of the other floors (this is from a promotional video, so it's what the company _wants_ to portray): https://i.imgur.com/4CkI4AI.png https://i.imgur.com/4CkI4AI.png

mikelevins 7y ago

The best office I was in as very much like this. It was in the Bubb Road office of Apple's Newton team. Each person had a walled office with a door that closed, a full-length window next to the door, and an exterior window on the building's grounds. The office was just about big enough to fit two people to sit or stand in front of the whiteboard. Each half a dozen or so offices were arranged around common areas with sofas and gaming tables, and next to kitchens. We called the common areas "living rooms". Rolling whiteboards were stationed in or near the living rooms. It was close to ideal. If you needed privacy to think, you could close the door. If you were receiving visits, you could open it. If you needed contact with others, or a serious discussion, you could join people in the living room and roll in a whiteboard if it was needed. I also worked at NeXT, which had a similar arrangement, except that its common areas weren't as inviting as Newton's living rooms.

dkersten 7y ago
That sounds really great! I dream of working in such a place. If my next (or any, really) startup venture is successful, I will strive to create a similar space (but also I strongly believe in remote working as an option, no reason to lock yourself out of amazingly talented people just because they’re out of you geographical proximity)

Gravityloss 7y ago

I wonder how much lower salary people would accept if they got a much sparser work environment?