The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

That's a rather bold assumption. I bet if you just asked employees, you'd get mixed responses. The best part about cubicle walls is that they're easy to put up and tear down. Why not let team leaders choose whether or not to have cubicles for their team (with team member input of course)?

"A building filled with individual privates offices and no common areas would go all the way to the introvert end."

I've been there, and the reality is people in extroverted moods crowd into one office, or schedule endless meetings in a conference room, or just hang out together.

Also, its mood in addition to personality. I'm probably 90% introverted and 10% extroverted in feeling. I don't mind a quality meatspace discussion, just keep it to a reasonable fraction of my day, not all the time or when I'm trying to concentrate or when I'm trying to do actual productive work.

I'm a bit miffed at the author for missing the obvious on-call analogy that if open plan offices are so great, then every time I get an "emergency" call at home or jump on a conference call when I'm out of the office, then I should run to the nearest playground or daycare and sit in the center of the loudest most disruptive room. After all, that noise is supposed to make me productive. I can only imagine in horror one the result of those architects redesigning the study areas or labs back at uni.

When I'm doing my own work at home in an environment designed for me to be ideal, when I'm concentrating as hard as possible, it probably shocks some open office stockholm syndrome victims that my near perfect home conditions don't involve 25-50 televisions blasting reality TV at full volume, simultaneously, while I work.

And there's also the denigration factor, not mentioned in the article. You mere proles don't really think, so you don't need conditions to think. Us managers are paid to do all the thinking so we have offices. You proles belong in your sweatshop, you losers. Its a very intense, negative message. Architecture has meaning, and designing a daily kick in the nuts into your office is just inhumane. I'm sure its very funny for our superiors to watch us suffer a la Mr Burns style (oh how cute, they think we care about how badly we're treating them, ha ha as he strokes his villain cat). Mixed offices of management in offices and proles in the inhumane open area results in feelings similar to having "regular" and "colored" water fountains back in the old days. "We know is sucks, but it keeps you lower animals in place."

Its not just that open office advocates are wrong, its that they're so wrong that a thoughtful discussion will inevitably appear to be parody.

Many organizations pay headhunters tens of thousands of dollars for a hire. Each person costs $100K+ (often significantly more) fully loaded. Yet somehow the price of some tall cube walls is the issue? It's flawed math, people scrimping on the environment and then maximizing head count, getting less out of the latter by cheaping on the former.

IOW, you're a fairly normal introvert, then. Most introverts like people, enjoy conversations and parties, et cetera. But such activities take energy, so after a while you need some time alone to recharge. (If you're lucky, your SO is similar, so time spent with them also lets you recharge).

Extroverts are similar -- they can enjoy time spent alone, but it saps their energy, so after a while they have to go talk to somebody to recharge. That's why they're so annoying in a software development shop -- their job is "alone" with a computer, so every once in a while they need to interrupt somebody to play ping pong or have a conversation, et cetera.