less aesthetically pleasing in office photographs, but overall a much better work environment than any open plan I've experienced.
Here's a good example:
https://www.officemuseum.com/1935_Auditor_of_Overcharge_Clai...
More pictures:
[0] There's probably a better term for this...
I've been living in cities and I think that is a big factor. Real estate is expensive. But make no mistake, open workspaces are miserable places. Cubicles still suck, but they're a massive step up from open floor plans.
I forget where I saw this but there was a company that had set up what were basically "team offices" so teams that worked closely together each had their own closed room where they worked, so they could collaborate in their own manner.
Quiet when they needed it, loud when they needed it, and on their own schedule.
That seems like a good middle.
If you're reading this and you have this setup - don't take the bait to move to the newly remodeled building - it's a trap!
In big companies, there usually isn't a problem with communicating within a team - the problems occur when teams aren't communicating with people in other teams. These team rooms ruin any informal inter-team collaboration and communication.
It's not a good middle, it's the best possible way to work.
In my pre 2010 job, the walls of the cube I had were quite tall and gave reasonable privacy. In my 2016 job, they were quite short for "enhanced collaboration". I didn't really feel "safe" in my short cube, for lack of a better word.
If you feel "safe" in that manner, it increases your focus, and thus productivity.
The cubes we had at Lockheed were great because they were super big.
I've hated every "open office" layout I have ever had.
I especially liked having a shared office though, sitting back-to-back in a single office, with a door - What I liked about it was that my office mate and I both liked to work with the light off, and just let the natural light from the window through (floor to ceiling window)
When you have some sense of self-privacy, and ability to block people out, your productivity is higher.
The reason why the "open office" concept was pushed, is all about cost.
Its cheaper to give people a slot at the trough, as opposed to building them an office or cube.
(Source: Former Designer and implementation builder at some of the largest open-office-concept companies you have all heard of)
cubicles were a step down from individual offices, and was the manifestation of commoditization of the software engineering. The transition from cubicles to open offices was the part of that process going even further. Basically blue collar workers of 196x on a large factory floor.
One would think that we've reached the peak of bad offices ... Well, i think some form of vertically stacked option is coming in the mid-term. In the short-term i think the next thing is the "cloud" style approach where no office desk is assigned permanently and coming into office you'd have to [find and]schedule a desk for yourself. That would allow to cut office space even more.
After a while you get to know that this spot - letter "E" and "Backspace" doesn't work, that spot - mouse right click doesn't work, third spot - second monitor flashes every 10min...
And then there is this constant "I don't belong here" feeling. Sure it is more "efficient" from the space and hardware utilization perspective. For call centers - I don't mind the setup, but good luck to you if you are planning to build software in such environment.
Bunk-bed desks.
In ~2017 I did a contract with Ericsson, in their offices they had no assigned desks. Some days you'd show up in the morning and find another team had moved into your space, claiming that some other team had taken theirs. In those days we became desk refugees, wandering halls to find/take a space large enough for the team.
The next stage, that we reached around 2016/2017, is "we're running out of seats; everyone should work from home one day a week to alleviate the problem". Good when you're at home, but the rest of the week becomes even more chaotic because you can't predict what the available seats will be like day-to-day.
I'm fine with this. I'm surprised that airline seat manufacturers don't make versions for office use -- business class seats are much nicer than any open plan desk I've ever sat at. You are fully surrounded on all sides, your chair can turn into a bed, and inside an office you can probably stack them. Getting a couple of 30" monitors in there that are infinitely adjustable would be a challenge, and cleaning it sounds like a pain in the ass... but I'm sure these issues could be resolved if there is money in doing it.
I think people like open-plan offices because they're easy. You move into the space, have IKEA deliver a bunch of tables, and you're set up. It's cheap and it's easy.
I don't think most tech workers have really had a proper office.