
Ask HN: How does the perfect office space look like? - cimnine
Our company will move into a new office space soon, and we&#x27;re looking into building the &quot;best&quot; office space possible. We have basically two kind of personell: Sales &amp; Operation Engineers (very interactive teams and lots of calls) and Software&#x2F;System Engineers &amp; Management (somewhat talkative, but rarely on the phone). It would be nice if you could share stories about places that blew you away (good and bad), learn from your experiences (good and bad) and get references to (scientific) research material you can recommend on the topic.
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LeoSolaris
Depends on the type of work being done. If you're looking at a lot of
employees that need to do focused work like coding, then you need a place
where they can shut their doors, but with adequate meeting space dedicated for
their use. As a software engineer, I loathe the open floor plan because I
cannot get anything done. (Struggling with that now and actively searching for
a new job because of it.)

When I was in operations, having an open-ish war room with a few shared
displays of monitors where everyone can talk was helpful during a crisis only.
That is easily replicated with a good chat software like Slack, if the ops
team needs to work around quieter groups. Outside of a crisis, the openness
was only useful for gossiping. Of course, outside of a crisis OPs have a much
more limited number of jobs because they exist to fix the crisis situations,
so the extra chatter really helps the group cohesion under pressure.

I would suggest asking your teams to make formal recommendations as teams
about their future work space. A command decision, no matter how well grounded
in research, will devalue the needs of your people and lead to sub-optimal
spaces. They are unique groups, and may not need to follow the "best"
industrial patterns.

Also, don't let the managers overrun the conversation. Otherwise you will end
up with spaces that make it easier to micromanage people rather than get work
done. Panopticons, where management are in offices while workers are in highly
exposed open spaces, lead to higher turn over every single time. You want
spaces where people can work conveniently, not where managers can manage
easily.

~~~
matt_the_bass
I like the idea of soliciting input from your team. You might want to include
some budgetary guidance to them as well. Since I’m assuming you don’t have
unlimited budget. Have them help you decide how to build it out.

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eb0la
A combination of open and closed areas:

Closed areas for meetings, calling, and deep concentration. Open areas for
side-by-side coding and colaboration.

Usually marketing and sales can work anywhere: give'em an open space. Also
give them a closed place where they can call confidentially a client without
developers/pm hear them.

Project managers are similar, put them near sales and development teams.

Devs need to remain focused for 1-2h runs, and might need to do pair
programming or just get help. If you bring them an open space, gift them with
deep concentration cabins, and/or meeting rooms for 2-3 people.

Sysadmins need something with a door to make some friction between the team
and them. Otherwise people passing by will ask them anything possible. If you
don't have such space they will migrate silently to the datacenter.

Data scientist need absolute silence. Closed spaces, rooms, etc will work. If
the place is not quiet enough consider renting some space at the nearest churh
and install wifi there (not kidding).

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chris11
I've liked the idea of a hub-and-spoke model. I don't particularly like the
idea of open offices, but does make communication easier sometimes. The idea
of a hub-and-spoke space is that individuals have their own private work
space, but are forced to go through one common space to enter their office. So
for instance, maybe all the engineers would have to use one hallway, which
would branch out to specific team meeting rooms, and then the individual
offices would be attached to those team meeting rooms. So the offices would
let engineers have private work spaces, but the common areas would make it
really easy to have random conversations with other engineers about work and
tech.

[https://www.archdaily.com/884192/why-open-plan-offices-
dont-...](https://www.archdaily.com/884192/why-open-plan-offices-dont-work-
and-some-alternatives-that-do)

Cal Newport also writes a lot about creative work, deep work, and how office
layout influences productivity.

[http://calnewport.com/blog/](http://calnewport.com/blog/)

~~~
jon-wood
Pixar's offices were designed around this principle, with everywhere being
accessed through a large central hall designed to encourage interaction.

[https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-
an...](https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-and-the-
legacy-of-steve-jobs/)

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drrob
I used to work at a place with an ostensibly open-plan office, but with lots
of wall panels on wheels that could be moved to form little work areas. These
also doubled as white boards.

In short: I like modular, configurable workspaces, with lots of whiteboards.

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mchannon
Joel (as in the Joel test) had a worthwhile article about a decade ago, still
worth reading: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-
creek-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-
office/)

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kzisme
As most people are saying a balance between open and closed space would be
nice.

For me personally I find that the temperature of the room/building is
important. At my office people continually turn up the thermostat to 75-80F.

Aside from that giving employees enough room to turn around in their chair is
decently important in my opinion . In my current setup (I call it the sweat
shop setup) I'm not able to turn around or get out of my chair without bumping
into my co-worker behind me.

Lastly - one thing that happened at my office was the installation of over-
head speakers (think department store style) that constantly streamed Pandora.
Please don't do that as it's annoying.

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partisan
The best office I have worked in had cubicles with tall walls and overhead
cabinetry. The cubicle was large enough to move around in and could support
one other person sitting looking over my shoulder. We had a small conference
area with small table and whiteboard that didn't see much action. We also had
a large conference room with a real wood desk. The managers had the three
offices that surrounded the three rows. This was a team of 16 devs and QA and
dba, 2 managers, and a CIO. Remote workers would come in and grab a free
cubicle or take the group area when no free cubes were available.

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chatmasta
As evidenced by how heated these discussions tend to get, it really comes down
to developer preference. If you can find a way to blend the best of both
worlds, and offer your employees some choice of where to work, you’ll be good.

Things to consider beyond the obvious questions of cost or distraction/focus:
knowledge sharing, mentoring of junior devs, and culture building. The
environment you build will fall somewhere on a spectrum of open office, doored
single offices, doored shared offices, or open offices with “pods.” Consider
the tradeoffs of all these (and ask your employees for their input!) before
making your decision.

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SirLJ
Give the people the option to work from home and welcome them to the 21st
century... this is the best office space by far...

~~~
matt_the_bass
Maybe the “best office space by far” in your opinion. But I’m certain many
(including me) disagree.

I think it is valid to offer as a possible option to consider regarding the
original question. But not with the label as “the best”.

Personally I like the option of working remote sometimes but I don’t feel
productive when remote for most activities. I feel productive in my office. I
also find value in the irl interaction with co-workers. But we also have
offices with max 2 people (3 for interns). So there is already lots of privacy
and quiet at the office.

~~~
SirLJ
Not sure how many would prefer going to the office every day... from all
people working (and worked) for me, not a single one...

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Gustomaximus
I've always liked the glass office thing. Seems a good balance between privacy
and noise reduction but open so you can see each other and whats going on.
Make make eye contact to communicate visually etc.

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dasmoth
While there are better than open plan (and sometimes the only way to get small
offices which still receive a bit of natural light) they’re still a pain if
you find motion in your peripheral vision distracting. Frosted glass helps.

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farnsworthy
If you were leaning towards an open space, I'd suggest including private rooms
somewhere in the plan as well (and not dinging people for wanting to ensconce
themselves therein).

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codegladiator
Coffee machine is good to have.

