Let me take you through my dream office
Decided to change job recently, applied for two, went for an interview at the first and they offered me the job.
I took it on the spot despite the other place paying more.
One of the reasons I took it on the spot was when asked where I'd prefer to work and I said somewhere quiet he said there are offices upstairs, take whichever one you want.
That was the major deciding factor (among others), I know the other place is open plan.
I'll take slightly less pay to sit in a quiet office and work over an open office.
(Other things I liked about the job where flex time, I buy all hardware I need myself, they pay for conferences, training courses, no phone on the desk (I asked for that and they said no problem), an interesting complex problem (I like enterprise stuff) and they are strongly focused on building out some proper in-house technical skill and replacing their creaking systems, I get technical freedom, I can use whatever I want on the backend and I'll be assembling a team as they bring stuff back in house and final kicker it's 10m walk from where I live so no commute).
Since both places pay more than enough for me to live comfortably in north of England I'll happily take the slightly lower pay (in the short term) for the above.
I don't think employers still understand how much some developers loathe open offices, it's not a 'prefer' to, it is a 'won't if at all possible'.
As a technologist working at a company that helps businesses design & build office space, one item I notice always lacking in conversations about office space is growth.
The article brushes off growth by suggesting you just open a new office when you've grown. This suggestion lacks understanding of how growth happens. It's rarely an instant doubling of headcount. Most organic growth creeps up.
So let me invade your "dream" office with a bit of tough reality. Everywhere you imagined 3 people, 6 months later, put in 5. Then 4 months later, every available "single quiet" space, replace with a full time desk. Then in 60 days put a few part timers and interns out in common area, permanently. Now hold the line for a couple years while we find affordable space to relocate everyone to.
Your dream space becomes just another overcrowded, noisy envitonment due to the realities of cost and efficiency that drive every business.
I like the concept of the shared 3-person offices. I think that's a good size. As someone who works professionally designing offices (as an engineer, but working with architects and interior designers) let me bring up a few practical considerations.
1. Accessibility. Offices have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities act. This includes requirements determining how wide passageways have to be. So having a wall immediately in front of a door as you enter a room is problematic. You need enough space between the wall and the door for a person in a wheelchair to enter and turn around. This creates a lot of wasted space compared to not having the wall there. Likewise the study corrals in the quite space room are way too close together, the bathroom doesn't have a handicapped stall, if you have showers, one or more of the shower stalls will also need to be accessible.
2. I'm not sure how well the unisex bathroom would fly. There are code requirements for number of toilets / urinals required based on occupancy. Usually it ends up cheaper to separate the bathrooms since some of the requirements for men can be addressed with urinals, which are going to be cheaper.
3. There's a reason most offices don't have a stove. Once you put a stove in a pantry it becomes a kitchen - a commercial kitchen. This brings a host of other requirements for automatic fire suppression over the stove. Exhaust hoods over the range. Makeup air to replace the air pushed out by the range hood. Grease traps, all sorts of things. Not that it can't be done, it's just expensive and most companies will not pay for it.
4. Space requirements - the design is very space inefficient. While it's nice to have a big room shared by 3 people, it's going to cost a lot in terms of rent. Offices are leased in terms of $/sf. Every extra square foot that isn't being used is costing you money. The main reason companies like open offices is that they can cram a lot of people into a minimum amount of space. This would be really nice and a wonderful place to work, but it will cost a fortune.
I'm feverishly anticipating for e-ink displays (same stuff as your e-readers), to be plugged in as second monitors. These displays work "outside", and then _my_version_of_the_dream_office_ can become reality: working in NATURE.
This of a beautiful garden when many spots: open sun or shady, in a glasshouse or in an airconned glass covered veranda. And "office workers" just find themselves a spot!
Besides that I also thing standing desks are a must. This is the least you can do to mitigate early death by desk-job. On top of that I think that under desk treadmills are another huge step forward. And a spot where you can do a few stretching exercises (with a pull-bar) is also not a luxury in my opinion.
Architect here. Distraction is an issue for us as well. My ideal office would be along these lines too. Mostly it's just construction and rental cost that prevents it; open plan offices use much less floor space and are simpler for things like HVAC and fire evacuation. If you want to change this to an enclosed layout you need to reconfigure all these systems. Most office space is built speculatively by developers and will be designed to be fitted out as open plan because of this. Most office space that is built for a specific company is also built to this standard because it improves the resale value of the building if it can be sold as generic office space.
Cool post. A few issues I see:
- 30 people team?! I find 10-12 or so to be the max size before things descend into chaos
- 3 person office seem like a wrong compromise to me. If you want to optimize for focused time, individual offices are best. 2 people offices can be alright, but you'll necessarily have moments when someone comes to talk to your coworker for 30 minutes about blablabla. If you want to optimize for in person collaboration, pick a studio/lab like layout for the whole team (topping out at 10-12). But 3 people is just an odd middle of the road approach that's too awkward in practice, in my experience.
- The wall covering the door is a good idea in theory, but in reality it would probably mean distraction every time someone knocks at the door. How does the visitor see whether the person they want to see is in or not without entering and potentially distracting everyone?
- Bathroom stalls would work if they were fully closed stalls, European style. If this is in the US, then it'd get really awkward as you hear loud farts next to you and recognize the shoes of Jerry from accounting. Individual bathrooms would be much better.
- Those "quiet time" seats seem awfully tight, and the library inconveniently narrow.
You have to have meeting rooms. People always say you don't, but you always do. Where do you do sprint planning? Project brainstorming? Private meetings (with actual privacy needed, like reviews)?
LOTs of things I like about this office layout.
What I would add, black out blinds on all outer facing windows. I don't see a refrigerator or a coffee machine/water/drinks.
What I don't like.
I would say rather then a white board, do a white wall.
Is the TV screen really needed? Its so easy to just teleconference on your monitor.
Stand-up room needs to white board space for sure! Maybe use a projector instead of a the monitors?
Cant say I care for the bathroom RIGHT next to the kitchen, personally I would prefer those on opposite sides of the room.
I think the wall leading into each office takes up a ton of space, and adds little value. How about a sliding barn door style door instead.
Last and most controversial. Get rid of the laptops and give everyone a desktop machine. Create a laptop pool for people who want one when out of the office. Use VMs to get your environments on them quickly. Plus I LOVE two large monitors, but I do a lot of UX work. Code on the portrait monitor, browser in landscape.
Thx for sharing!
One sad thing that this article (I think inadvertently) illuminates is how hypersensitive Americans are about mundane parts of life like using the bathroom.
Markus' office design works over here in Europe because [I'm fairly certain] his crowd invests heavily in a healthy social culture at work, as opposed to a nervously litigious (i.e. immediately defer to HR) culture as is so common in the US.
Personally, I think Markus' office design is excellent. What I would change however, is the television setup. I've been 100% remote for most of my career, so I'm always the guy on the television. I would much prefer to be on everyone's screens individually like a little StarCraft briefing room.
Some benefits:
- sound quality is better
- less chance of audio feedback
- visual cues (like when someone wants to interject) are easier to pick up on
- screen sharing is usually easier
- difference in latency is less pronounced
One modern office concept readers who like OP's concept might find interesting is at the company zeb in Munich, designed by Evolution Design: https://officesnapshots.com/2016/10/26/zeb-offices-munich/
Definitely a place I would like to work. Only thing it's missing is a place for nursing moms to pump (and an in-house daycare if I'm dreaming).
I recently finished _Deep Work_ by Cal Newport. In the book he discusses a workplace concept designed by David Dewane called the "Eudaimonia Machine". This workspace has multiple sections you progress through linearly, slowly moving towards independent, distraction free, personal chambers where you perform your most productive, thoughtful, deepest work.
My dream office would have more rooms like this!
Am I the only one who actually likes open offices? I like the vibrant feeling and never have any problems with distractions. I just put my headphones on and zone in.
This is awesome. Thanks for putting in the time to put this together.
I love the 3-man office. Personally, I would just make it a 1-man office. I'm a very loud thinker and easily distracted so I really can't have anyone in the room when I'm hacking.
Open floor in the center, lots of single person office rooms at the outer ring, with the ability to switch any time.
My previous office where I worked is one of the best ever.
- office rooms (usually 1 team or half a team per room, about 3-4ppl)
- electric tables for everyone (so you can work either seated or standing)
- very nice kitchen, 2 * cooking facilities, 3 fridges, espresso machine
- sauna + showers + lockers and towels
- laundry facilities
- music room with bass, guitars, eletric drums, keyboards. also combined as VR room
- games lounge with big ass screen and some consoles and PC with proper "rally setup"
- big library with sofas
- quiet room with 2 beds
Additionally:
- occupational nurse comes to the office once a month
- physiotherapist comes to the office once a week for some exercise
- Monday morning starts with a common breakfast
and of course some very smart people!
I feel like the solo zones would get monopolized by people that like being solo until necessary.
Traditional closed offices, conference rooms for group work, and multiple non-shared unisex bathrooms (exactly like the kind in a typical house--how innovative!)
That's the perfect office, and I know because I've worked in it and every other variation.
"which also brings everyone together during lunch time"
Fuck that. I am out of there for some air, a walk and peace.
Really cool office. I like that there is a lot of windows. I imagine they could be closed if you want less sunlight/glare.
I like the unisex bathroom. The majority of bathrooms are already unisex, as everyone have unisex restrooms at home. We could avoid a lot of complications by having them in the offices as well. Another good thing of your model is not having the gap in the stalls that is so common in the US. I also loved having a shower. One thing, why do you need the window between the bathroom and the kitchen? I don't like the idea of everyone in the kitchen looking who is going to the bathroom.
One thing that would bother me working in this office is that it looks like almost every computer screen has a window behind it or is facing a common area. I don't like that, personally.
The one-on-one meeting area, I think they would be better in a place with a whiteboard and more acoustic isolation and privacy. It could be used for interviewing a candidate too.
The stand-up room could lose one window in favor of a whiteboard.
On the whole, certainly an improvement over any open-floor plan.
But... some points made me cringe.
> The unisex bathroom has a separate shower for those that come to the office by bike.
I do not want a unisex bathroom. I've had a unisex bathroom... at work and in college and I don't want to go back to that again. Unisex bathrooms create way too many awkward situations... (And also, I wouldn't put the bathroom next to the kitchen... that's just odd.)
> The kitchen is very well equipped with a large stove, because cooking is a great social activity, and you can’t beat healthy, self-cooked lunch.
I don't want there to be a kitchen at work. Truth be told, I don't even want there to be a microwave at work... this is the source of the bad smells the author was complaining about. These things never get cleaned right. I've worked for a lot of agencies, including some really nice places, and unless they have full-time custodial staff going around cleaning up after you, the kitchen will always be disgusting. And the smell... encouraging people to cook at work I think is a horrible idea. If I had a kitchen... I certainly wouldn't put the stove against an interior wall, I'd want that to be vented outside with a strong range hood fan.
> No dedicated meeting room? Yes, meetings should be reduced to an absolute minimum and can be held in one of the offices or in the stand-up area. This makes them public and everyone easily has the chance to join in.
I'd want one or two dedicated meeting rooms. If only for interviews, or staff disciplinary meetings / HR meetings where it wouldn't be appropriate to have it in someone's office... I don't need a massive conference room, but a couple of 12x12 rooms with round tables and some white boards would be nice.
A lot of commenters wished for single person rooms. As a remote worker, I'd say: if I want to work solo (for some time), why go to the office in the first place? I'd stay at home or go to a coffee shop.
I could imagine having a second floor, that has more privacy features: single person offices, rooms for private conversations, power napping, nursing mums, yoga.
What do you think?
A microwave creates enough nasty smells, and he wants a full kitchen?
I always thought that Fog Creek Software’s “Bionic Office” was interesting:
Nice designs - I like them and would certainly consider some of those ideas in any future office fitout of mine.
However, I am unsure about those walls just inside the doorways that act as a buffer. Why not just have a door (with a glass window, the wall with the door doesn't already have a window)?
That way, the team working in the room can simply close the door when they do not want to be disturbed, or open it when they don't mind visitors. The window still lets others look in to peek at what they are doing, and the non window space on the door can still be used to put up signs, posters etc. as they would on the wall section.
We had 2 ovens in our last office. They got used once that i can remember. No-one wants to deal with bringing in all the materials to cook an oven meal and no-one wants to deal with all the cleaning afterwards... I'm not bringing in my pans, knives, cutting boards, spices, vegetables, meats, starches etc. to work, to cook one meal. No-one else is either. So you've got a large expensive hole in the wall that no-one uses. Get a second microwave instead. ;)
Good effort! Although you can't please everyone.
I think you should mention cost. The rectangle is about 20m x 16m = 320m2 or about 10,7m2/person. And the ceiling is about 3.5m.
I like it a lot. Some tweaks I'd suggest:
1. Alternate configurations of the offices to handle growth. People are gonna get added, it's inevitable so you may as well make the best of it.
2. 2 - 4 meeting rooms. They're just a must. Customer / contractor calls, interviews, client meetings, private meetings (nobody wants to get fired in front of their peers), etc.
I worked on the Cloudflare London office with a few other colleagues and an external architect firm who were tasked with making it a reality.
The proposed dream office would not work because:
* Teams are not always 3 or 6 and they grow and contract constantly
* Unisex bathrooms are fine for guys, not for anyone else
* 1 shower is never enough
* The airflow and temperature hasn't been thought about
* Growth hasn't been thought about
Also, in the comments someone suggested a proper stove in the kitchen. Let me dampen that immediately, fire regulations and other rules probably state that you cannot have an open flame or other heating devices outside of a very small selection or well-controlled items. You also probably are not fitting the electrics for this.
Unless your company size is very stable (WRT growth), you are going to have an open plan office.
It is the only way to deal with "fit more desks here", "change the layout like this", "that team is now growing faster than this team, swap their locations around".
Things we focused on:
* If we're going to have open plan (urgh), can we make it visually organic and not a battery farm (mis-align things, introduce space, randomness, natural materials, etc)
* If we're going to have open spaces, can we control the lighting so that it is flooded with natural light, we have zero strip lights and each area has control of their lighting (big windows, with blinds, dim lights over work areas, desk lighting people can control, LED strips for even lighting over walkways)
* To keep it habitable, we pump far more regular air than most places would, and we only aircon a little when it really is outside of a comfortable range
* If we're going to have communal spaces can we have them cosy and quiet (read "A Pattern Language", we purchased a lot of old Danish furniture and furnished small spaces like a little living rooms, very comfy)
* If we're going to have a town hall space / auditorium, can we limit the noise or impact on the rest of the environment
* If we're going to have a shared kitchen, can we make sure people can sit with most of their team (bench tables beat small tables, as the latter constrain you to 6 people and a team may be 7)
But it is an office, there is high growth. In the current London space we started with 60 people and now have just shy of 100, and it is the same space and we're not yet sitting on top of each other. That is only achievable by having open plan and not filling in space with desks until you have to, and by moving people around when you need to.
The ideal office shown... would be lovely. But to have that, you cannot really have any growth, and I bet the air would stagnate in that space pretty quickly.
Things we got wrong:
* Not enough of the right sized meeting rooms. We put in 4 x 2 people, 2 x 4 people, 1 x 8 person. Later had to add 2 x 6 people and another 1 x 8 person.
* We are starting to feel the noise levels, this really is about how sales grows fastest at a certain point in the life of a company and sales are inherently noisy by comparison... we've moved engineering away but this still means some staff who are not in sales are impacted by sales noise.
Things we got right:
* The flow around the office is really nice, people interact without being forced together or too far apart
* 3 showers for 100 people is enough that no-one waits long even when a quarter of staff are cycling in the height of Summer because we don't dictate a start hour to all staff (only those covering shifts)
What you build is according to needs, but growth dictates almost everything. You may not even stay in your new fancy office for more than a couple of years if your growth is that good, and this is going to dictate your spend.
Ultimately for it to make sense to design an office, the amortized costs need to be competitive with hiring space from Regus or something. If you've gone too far down the path of a design that involves putting up internal walls and spaces that need ripping down to handle growth, then the project is probably doomed to fail.
what about open plan but they give you ear buds in the morning and you can only communicate via memo or in a meeting room.
It eludes me why all the images are taken from above, a viewpoint from which no user will ever actually see the office ...
This has a lot of problems.
First, legal problems: you can't have a unisex multi-stall bathroom in the USA. I'm not sure if it's actually illegal (it probably is in many states), but it'll never fly even if it is. Honestly, what you really need is a male restroom that's about 5 times the size of the female restroom. Again, that won't fly politically, but practically it makes sense because there's so few women in software. Better yet is to just ditch the shared bathrooms altogether: they're nasty and smelly, and it's inhuman to have to sit on the pot next to someone with only a crappy divider which doesn't even go to the floor so you can see their feet and their pants around their ankles. You also have to worry about Idahoans playing footsie with you in there. Whoever came up with this idea has serious mental issues, and somehow it's the norm almost everywhere. Instead, just have separate 1-person unisex bathrooms, and put little showers in at least 2 of them for the cyclists.
The walled offices with giant windows: these windows are much too large on the inside. The whole reason for a walled office is to have privacy, and you're taking it away with those windows. Also, you're distracting the people sitting inside because they'll see all the people walking by their office, since that office will most likely open into a high-traffic corridor. Make the windows much smaller, maybe enough to see the top of the head of someone sitting inside and that's about it. Or just get rid of them altogether, or maybe have frosted glass. Windows on the other side are nice, but there's only so much space along the outside wall of the building, so who gets to sit here? Likely only managers.
The dedicated "quiet alone-time" places are great, but there aren't nearly enough of them. They're going to get monopolized, while all those "team spaces" are going to get ignored mostly. How about just having only the quiet 1-person places, and just one or two of the team spaces for the people who really like that or in case something comes up where people want to work as a team temporarily?
The library isn't a bad idea, but it's not nearly large enough.
The "townhall" is a massive waste of space. You don't need daily stand-ups, that's a patch for lousy management. The building should have a large meeting room shared by all departments for events where you need everyone present.
Honestly, we'd all be better off if we could go back to the way offices were in the 70s or 80s, minus the smoking inside part.
I do like his illustrations though: it reminds me of playing Duke Nukem 3D.
Interesting thoughts and I haven't personally formed an opinion about where I stand on this one, quite yet.
I worked at home for almost ten years until two months ago when I started a job at a tech company at their main office. They have the oft-maligned[0] open-office layout, which coming from a work-at-home coding job, should have been really painful. Their approach, however, has worked out really well for me for a few reasons:
0/ Staff understands the need for concentration when coding. Almost everyone here is a software developer, so we're all respectful of one another. I was told on day one that if someone has headphones in, it's best to instant message them rather than walk up because there's an unwritten rule that "headphones" means "I'm concentrating". I actually wonder how many folks have headphones in with nothing on -- I use my active noise-cancelling cans regularly with nothing but the noise cancelling turned on because it gives solid, simulating, silence. But the thing of it is, the place isn't loud or overly distracting.
1/ There are a number of meeting rooms and couches throughout the office, located in quiet places, with no "rules" about use other than that scheduled meetings win over impromptu for meeting rooms. People are encouraged to work wherever they're comfortable and I prefer to sit on a couch with my feet up since while I was working at home I tended to work on my couch in the living room or in my bed rather than in my office[1]. The couches are placed in areas that are offset from the general office area, so they're quieter, as well. I simply don't sit at my assigned desk and nobody cares (really, it's encouraged). My desk is also located on a side of the office where lights are turned off because those who sit over there prefer it[1].
2/ They have a number of other alternative workstations set-up, like unassigned standing desks (with bar-stools for those who want to sit at a standing desk...). This allows me to switch things up when I'm in a rut and need an environment change to inspire me.
I thought it was going to be a lot more painful to adjust from working at home to working in an open-office environment. I'm finding I like it quite a bit, though. At the end of the day most companies have two choices for office layout -- open or cube farm. The reason is that cubicle walls are considered furniture under tax code, whereas offices are classified differently. This makes cube-walls far more cost effective than "real walls" due to the increased time that it takes for the latter to be allowed to be written off. Having done the cramped cube-farm arrangement, I'll take open. Cubicles are the worst of both worlds -- they feel like working in a (small) closet, and when laid out the way they typically are, they destroy ones ability to navigate an office, block natural light and make a place feel more prison-like. Open offices kill privacy and negatively affect concentration but allow light to flow and make the office feel big and ... open ... which I am finding I like quite a bit. Plus, it's a lot easier to ride the one-wheel skateboards around the office when there's fewer obstructions.
[0] Oft-maligned by me, specifically. I wrote regularly about my hatred of this kind of office but now having spent a few months working in one, I am enjoying it quite a bit provided a few features are present.
[1] I casually mentioned my dislike for the darker side of the office to one of the company founders who introduced himself while I was working on the couch in the kitchen. Before I could get the sentence out was told "Oh, just move your desk!". I haven't done so because I have no need. Sometimes I want to work in the dark (it's not actually "dark", it's just not lit by interior lighting -- our office is pretty bright due to the wealth of windows and natural light during the day), so I troll back there when I feel like it. Because I can work in so many different places in the office, it's irrelevant where my desk is.
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This is a nice thought exercise...but that this is often treated like one of the great tribulations of our time as developers...it's a bit pathetic. I'm not saying things can't be better, but as a working people, we're not exactly oppressed.