At this moment, I have earplugs in with headphones over them. All because our tech support guy does not have an "indoor voice." It's very hard to be creative sometimes with nonsense going on around you.
There's one group who comes in every single morning and literally shout to communicate with each other. I've complained about them multiple times but nothing has been done. So what I've started doing is bringing two pairs of headphones: My Sennheiser in-ear buds and my Sony over-ear noise cancelling headphones. With both of them on and some Miles Davis playing softly in the background I can effectively block out all other noise.
In the city I live in, we have three Universities, and all of them have a 'zoned' approach. An outer work area where anything goes, some rooms where talking is allowed, and an inner quiet zone that is strictly enforced. People seem to find their equilibrium points.
The three institutions vary in standing and clientèle. The Russell Group University has the largest silent zone and small peripheral anything goes zones. The situation is reserved for the 'community' University, with a small silent zone. The technical university has about equal quiet and noisy anything goes zones with a sort of 'sensible talking' buffer zone in the middle.