To be sure, most (if not all) of the workers in the great workroom here did not have phones on their desks.
Without the close ceilings or walls it might not be as bad, if he got the acoustics right it might be more like being outdoors than the echoing-cave effect most open plan offices have.
I wish I didn't have a phone at my desk.
I just changed employers. Found the new desk does not come with a phone, and may never come with a phone. We communicate via email, or hipchat, or just walking over and saying 'hi'.
I might miss it .. but so far, so good.
Yeah, I'd rather work in a shipping container. This kind of design is psycho-manager-centric.
To be fair to Wright, the open plan was probably a design requirement. I very much doubt he had a choice in that.
You can handle the noise with decent headphones, but I'm never really comfortable without my back to a wall.