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I'm reminded of an old bit by Joel Spolsky of Stack Overflow, where he outlines — in extreme detail — his designs for the old Fog Creek offices. It's very clear

I'm reminded of an old bit by Joel Spolsky of Stack Overflow, where he outlines — in extreme detail — his designs for the old Fog Creek offices. It's very clear that he put more thought into these designs than the work that most interior architects I've encountered have bothered to perform. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-in-private-offices/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-i... (remarkable that cubicles used to be our idea of office hell, and now just seem like an unimaginable amount of personal space)

shagie 5y ago
If you ever hunt up a copy of A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Mary Silverstein (the book that inspired Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software) it is an interesting read. Patterns 146, 151, and 152 get into the design of the office. For example, 146 - Flexible Office - https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=PA690&dq=a+pattern+language+146&source=bl&ots=S8pGqy6mbW&sig=ACfU3U3K1850NIpiyZXdh0rTlqcDdyBbsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJh7i_y6z0AhUOH80KHS0HCYoQ6AF6BAgVEAM#v=onepage&q=a%20pattern%20language%20146&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=... It is a fascinating book to read (and you don't need to consume it all at once). There are things in there that helped me understand why my house (it had its stairs reversed in the 1920s) has a flow to it that leads to certain rooms getting less use than they were designed for - the staircase from the 2nd floor living space now goes to the back door (rather than the center of the house) which means 2nd floor to garage is an easy transition while 2nd floor to front door is a harder one. That in turn makes it more natural (for this design of the house) to go out the garage door and along the sidewalk past light commercial when going down town than out the front door and past neighbors through the residential roads.

shagie 5y ago

If you ever hunt up a copy of A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Mary Silverstein (the book that inspired Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software) it is an interesting read. Patterns 146, 151, and 152 get into the design of the office. For example, 146 - Flexible Office - https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=PA690&dq=a+pattern+language+146&source=bl&ots=S8pGqy6mbW&sig=ACfU3U3K1850NIpiyZXdh0rTlqcDdyBbsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJh7i_y6z0AhUOH80KHS0HCYoQ6AF6BAgVEAM#v=onepage&q=a%20pattern%20language%20146&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=... It is a fascinating book to read (and you don't need to consume it all at once). There are things in there that helped me understand why my house (it had its stairs reversed in the 1920s) has a flow to it that leads to certain rooms getting less use than they were designed for - the staircase from the 2nd floor living space now goes to the back door (rather than the center of the house) which means 2nd floor to garage is an easy transition while 2nd floor to front door is a harder one. That in turn makes it more natural (for this design of the house) to go out the garage door and along the sidewalk past light commercial when going down town than out the front door and past neighbors through the residential roads.