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One facet that never comes up in these anti-open office articles is that it is 100% impossible to design the perfect office for you as an individual, for every

One facet that never comes up in these anti-open office articles is that it is 100% impossible to design the perfect office for you as an individual, for every other individual, all while designing an office that is perfect for the organization. Many people here advocate private offices, which are great, but as soon as you start putting up walls, you've totally restricted access to natural light in the interior of the building. Access to natural light and breaking down the hierarchy that came with private offices (exterior for high-level employees, corner for the highest) are partly responsible for creating an environment where open office are desirable alternatives. With all of condemnation for open plan office happening, I'm excited to see what the next swing of the pendulum back toward privacy will bring us. Hint: It won't be private offices. Some of the things I'm excited about in this regard are: -Activity-based working office designs -Increased working from home/telecommuting arrangements The most important part of office design is to consider your company's culture, and then develop an office that will best support it rather than jumping onto what types of designs have worked for the unique cultures of other companies.

bachmeier 11y ago
The trend will be the elimination of offices. There's nothing lower cost than forcing employees to provide their own offices and work equipment.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  It's not hard to check out equipment to work with for use offsite. Offsite work is a challenge, but at least for me, I'm probably doubly productive that way. Was the overall team doubly productive? I have no real way to know.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
As Joel Spolsky noted, getting natural light to a large number of small rooms is basically a solved problem: how many hotel rooms do you see without a window? Sure, private offices are smaller than hotel rooms, but offices generally have large numbers of meeting rooms, labs and common areas that don't need windows. Of course, that means that you need to build office buildings more like hotels; you can't so easily retrofit existing office buildings.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  Hotels can do that because their revenue is directly dependent on the quality of their rooms. No hotel can sell rooms without windows, so every hotel has to invest in architecture that gives every room a window--either through exterior convolutions, or a giant hollow atrium to soak up useless interior space. This is not true of other businesses. A software company makes no money at all from its architecture, so it can gain a competitive advantage by making more dense use of its available office space. Also: who wants a meeting room or common area with no natural light?
  - Cthulhu_ 11y ago
    Offices should do that because their revenue is directly dependent on the productivity and happiness of their employees. Likewise, no office builder should be able to sell offices without windows. After all, you'll spend more conscious time in the office than in a hotel room.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
saturdaysaint 11y ago
More likely is something mundane and not human spirit fulfilling like more "medium height" cubicle walls, high enough for privacy but low enough to not obstruct natural light. "Increased working from home/telecommuting arrangements" I'm hopeful that this will start happening as the labor market for information workers stays tight. A good start might be if workers started negotiating it as a fringe benefit - say, one telecommute day per month.
paganel 11y ago
> Many people here advocate private offices, which are great, but as soon as you start putting up walls, you've totally restricted access to natural light in the interior of the building. Which means you need different, i.e. better, buildings, those for which it is possible to construct window offices of 4-to-6 people. > Hint: It won't be private offices. Yeah, I don't think private offices will "come back", so to speak, but almost anything is better than the current "let's all share a long table"-thing. From my experience offices hosting 4-to-6 people are the best in terms of privacy, communication and ROI for the organization.
pjc50 11y ago
Small group offices of three to five people are the best working environments I've had. You could probably make it work up to eight, but having a single team larger than that is an organisational issue in itself. The hierarchy is real and shouldn't be pretended away. Having the CEO hotdesk does not actually make the company more egalitarian.
arbitrage 11y ago
Don't kid yourself. Take down walls, and people will still find ways to signal rank and hierarchy. People are the cause of this, not private working spaces.
- GFischer 11y ago
  At a large company I won't name, for the new buildings, the president ordered that no-one (except for the president of course) would have an enclosed office. The results were not what he would have wanted: management now commandeers the conference and meeting rooms almost all the time. And the buildings are incredibly awful for individual workers (absolutely no privacy at all, either a totalitarian no-sound approach or complete chaos, no private phone calls, etc.)
SonicSoul 11y ago
very well put. seems like the debate is always between offices vs everyone huddled around on bean bags (exaggeration). but what about open desks with some partial privacy while having accessible offices for meetings and calls. this setup has been working out well in the past 5 places i've worked at. It's good because when things come up (production issues or other teams having issues that may affect you later) you are not withdrawn from it. If your job is solitary and you shouldn't be bothered with daily stuff offices may be the way to go, but in my experience that has been quiet isolating for people and even managers. it's kind of like the Agile debate. Either you adhere to it 100% or it's a FAIL. What about taking all the parts that work for you and adopting them according to local culture. I get that it's no longer pure Agile but it can still partially work (i.e. having scrums and sprints and frequent releases but without having to work 12 hr days to meet the sprint if things come up etc). sorry about off point but the 2 debates have always been similar to me.

bachmeier 11y ago

The trend will be the elimination of offices. There's nothing lower cost than forcing employees to provide their own offices and work equipment.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
It's not hard to check out equipment to work with for use offsite. Offsite work is a challenge, but at least for me, I'm probably doubly productive that way. Was the overall team doubly productive? I have no real way to know.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

As Joel Spolsky noted, getting natural light to a large number of small rooms is basically a solved problem: how many hotel rooms do you see without a window? Sure, private offices are smaller than hotel rooms, but offices generally have large numbers of meeting rooms, labs and common areas that don't need windows. Of course, that means that you need to build office buildings more like hotels; you can't so easily retrofit existing office buildings.

snowwrestler 11y ago
Hotels can do that because their revenue is directly dependent on the quality of their rooms. No hotel can sell rooms without windows, so every hotel has to invest in architecture that gives every room a window--either through exterior convolutions, or a giant hollow atrium to soak up useless interior space. This is not true of other businesses. A software company makes no money at all from its architecture, so it can gain a competitive advantage by making more dense use of its available office space. Also: who wants a meeting room or common area with no natural light?
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  Offices should do that because their revenue is directly dependent on the productivity and happiness of their employees. Likewise, no office builder should be able to sell offices without windows. After all, you'll spend more conscious time in the office than in a hotel room.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

saturdaysaint 11y ago

More likely is something mundane and not human spirit fulfilling like more "medium height" cubicle walls, high enough for privacy but low enough to not obstruct natural light. "Increased working from home/telecommuting arrangements" I'm hopeful that this will start happening as the labor market for information workers stays tight. A good start might be if workers started negotiating it as a fringe benefit - say, one telecommute day per month.

paganel 11y ago

> Many people here advocate private offices, which are great, but as soon as you start putting up walls, you've totally restricted access to natural light in the interior of the building. Which means you need different, i.e. better, buildings, those for which it is possible to construct window offices of 4-to-6 people. > Hint: It won't be private offices. Yeah, I don't think private offices will "come back", so to speak, but almost anything is better than the current "let's all share a long table"-thing. From my experience offices hosting 4-to-6 people are the best in terms of privacy, communication and ROI for the organization.

pjc50 11y ago

Small group offices of three to five people are the best working environments I've had. You could probably make it work up to eight, but having a single team larger than that is an organisational issue in itself. The hierarchy is real and shouldn't be pretended away. Having the CEO hotdesk does not actually make the company more egalitarian.

arbitrage 11y ago

Don't kid yourself. Take down walls, and people will still find ways to signal rank and hierarchy. People are the cause of this, not private working spaces.

GFischer 11y ago
At a large company I won't name, for the new buildings, the president ordered that no-one (except for the president of course) would have an enclosed office. The results were not what he would have wanted: management now commandeers the conference and meeting rooms almost all the time. And the buildings are incredibly awful for individual workers (absolutely no privacy at all, either a totalitarian no-sound approach or complete chaos, no private phone calls, etc.)

SonicSoul 11y ago

very well put. seems like the debate is always between offices vs everyone huddled around on bean bags (exaggeration). but what about open desks with some partial privacy while having accessible offices for meetings and calls. this setup has been working out well in the past 5 places i've worked at. It's good because when things come up (production issues or other teams having issues that may affect you later) you are not withdrawn from it. If your job is solitary and you shouldn't be bothered with daily stuff offices may be the way to go, but in my experience that has been quiet isolating for people and even managers. it's kind of like the Agile debate. Either you adhere to it 100% or it's a FAIL. What about taking all the parts that work for you and adopting them according to local culture. I get that it's no longer pure Agile but it can still partially work (i.e. having scrums and sprints and frequent releases but without having to work 12 hr days to meet the sprint if things come up etc). sorry about off point but the 2 debates have always been similar to me.