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Is the open office layout dead?

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Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#341

Post by loco5niner »

hota_mazi wrote: post #173
throwaway0255 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. And how much does it cost to have your entire engineering team audibly and visually distracted and annoyed 100% of the time? Environmental factors that decrease engineer productivity may not show up on a balance sheet, but the cost is massive. Can you get an engineer an office for less than $40k/year? Then it's…

You're painting open offices in a completely negative light without seeing that they also have upsides. I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible. What's more, a lot of engineers actually voiced a preference for open space plans over individual offices. Cubicles are on the table as an acceptable compromise but…

> I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible.

Yet somehow most organizations can swing this for management.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#342

Post by mgkimsal »

Naga wrote: post #119
mgkimsal wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be a result of different design goals of other professions that need to maximise for the most amount of butts in seat per square meter, without factoring in the losses that distractions can cause. Many other professions factor in distractions in their office space set up. I don't think I've been to a decent attorney or CPA office setup where they were in a shared space or hotdesk situation. Offices la…

For accountant offices, the Big 4 are starting to roll out hotdesking, unfortunately.

YIKES!

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#343

Post by dingo_bat »

regularfry wrote: post #339
jdbernard wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is discussing mobile desks, so to get the benefit you are describing you'd have to have docks, monitors, and peripherals at every workstation.

Some offices do exactly that. Thinkpad docks everywhere.

Yup, same at my office.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#344

Post by rb808 »

rayiner wrote: post #320
rb808 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 sq ft/person really? :) make sure to include space for luxuries like hallways and bathrooms, as well as meeting rooms, printers, cupboards etc.

I'm assuming 100 square feet per person. The office rent is quoted on an annual basis.

sorry you're right I can't even math today.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#346

Post by flurdy »

basseq wrote: post #303
nerdponx wrote: post #286

No designated desks. Please please please no. Having "personal" space at the office is just as important as having "quiet" space. I do not want to feel like a drifter, a student in the library, or a tenant in a co-working space, unless I am actually one of those things.

I worked in a "hoteling" environment as a consultant for more than a year, so let me tell you what happens when there are no designated desks: There are designated desks. It turns into high school lunch hour, where everyone has "their seat" and god forbid the ignoramus who trespasses.

Whenever that happens I enjoy taking someone's "seat" if they are late, and watch them twitch but not say anything when they do come in....

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#347

Post by paulsutter »

rayiner wrote: post #301
paulsutter wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law firms are relatively static sized, sign leases of epic duration, and can thus remodel. Startups need to move once a year because they're growing and they keep filling up their space. When you move once a year you're really looking for a sublet, probably already furnished, and choosing from what's on the market. So at the core, the cause of open floor plans is too many open floor plans. And the more people that sw…

I totally get that there are non-cost reasons, like being able to rapidly expand. I was addressing just the "cost per person" angle. (I basically worked in that scenario before. We started with our own offices, then as we grew we reconfigured to space into large rooms with 4-6 cubes. It worked okay, especially because starting with individual offices enforced a "quiet" culture.)

Expanding rapidly is the very essence of a startup:

"A startup is a company designed to grow fast" http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#348

Post by flurdy »

nerdponx wrote: post #286

No designated desks. Please please please no. Having "personal" space at the office is just as important as having "quiet" space. I do not want to feel like a drifter, a student in the library, or a tenant in a co-working space, unless I am actually one of those things.

I used to insist on designated desks and hated offices with hot swap desks, clean desks policy etc. I had drawers full of crap, my own "special" monitors, kit bags underneath my desk, lots of cans of pepsi max etc and dreaded moving desks. And sometimes I often had managed to get the back-to-the-wall/window far-from-corridor lots-of-privacy desk and did not want to surrender the desks...

But then in the last few years I have always been on projects with 100% pairing so I rarely sit at my "own" desk anyway. And though people's habbits does still lead to defaulting to certain desks, some teams I have helped have started to rotate people's desks on purpose every week so people wouldn't get too attached.

This has lead me to appreciate no designated desks. Though also insisting desk areas belongs to a team and has enough capacity, and even allocating developer desk areas so the desk specs are not missmatched. Outsiders taking up space is still frowned upon. :)

I also have a more lighter office presence. As long as each desks has very decent monitor(s) and a charger, I just move my laptop, my ergonomic keyboard, and maybe the chair if it is good. Takes 1 minute in the morning when pairs change. Also having a good locker near your desk area means I stove my crap in there instead of moving a drawer unit around like a hobo. (Though "drawer jousting" can be fun).

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#349

Post by flurdy »

rayiner wrote: post #123

I've never understood the price issue. Class A in midtown Manhattan is $80 per square foot. That's $8,000 per year for a developer that probably makes well over six figures. Put two in an office that's only $4,000 per year. I really don't buy it considering how much money companies spend on office space. Like why he hell would you have offices in Greenwich Village ( http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-new-york-of…

Office design is different budgets than products and salary. And very different people and reporting lines. The office facilitators job is to save money by e.g. open planning and hot desking and is not measured at all on the productivity of the teams.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#350

Post by flurdy »

flurdy wrote: post #348
nerdponx wrote: post #286

No designated desks. Please please please no. Having "personal" space at the office is just as important as having "quiet" space. I do not want to feel like a drifter, a student in the library, or a tenant in a co-working space, unless I am actually one of those things.

I used to insist on designated desks and hated offices with hot swap desks, clean desks policy etc. I had drawers full of crap, my own "special" monitors, kit bags underneath my desk, lots of cans of pepsi max etc and dreaded moving desks. And sometimes I often had managed to get the back-to-the-wall/window far-from-corridor lots-of-privacy desk and did not want to surrender the desks... But then in the last few year…

The only issue is where the company has gone cheap on the desks and they are not all height adjustable so people can not opt to stand at them. So people bring in their own monstrous (but good) sit-stand desktop risers by e.g Varidesk, Ergotron, Ergo Desktop, etc which are not that movable.

Hopefully, we are not long away from that being a ubiquitous option in the office.

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