
Can ‘Pods’ Bring Quiet to the Noisy Open Office? - ingve
https://www.citylab.com/design/2019/07/open-plan-offices-architecture-acoustics-privacy-pods/586963/
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castillar76
The thing that a lot of these articles miss—probably because it doesn’t matter
at all to bean-counters—is personalization. The idea of spending all day
tapping away at a laptop keyboard makes my wrists ache thinking about it, and
the idea of being limited to a laptop display is pretty bad too. A real desk
with a real keyboard (and no keyboard is one-size-fits-all!) and a real
display is key to productivity, and wholly missing from all of these “just
work from a couch/phone booth/privacy pod/hot desk” designs. People need
individuality in their workspace equipment, to say nothing of the ability to
personalize their environment to make it _human_ with things like pictures and
plants. The inability to claim any part of the work environment as uniquely
_yours_ is dehumanizing, and only serves to make people less attached. If
companies want people to be attached to their employers (whether or not they
actually should be), they might try harder to make the workplace less generic
and depersonal.

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aidenn0
Is $3.5k per engineer really any cheaper than hiring a bunch of guys to throw
up drywall and a prehung door? I suppose ventilation ductwork (even in a drop-
ceiling) will probably put you over, but we are still working in the same
order-of-magnitude of a high-end workstation.

A few years ago we converted a large area to offices and drywall was actually
cheaper than 70"\+ height cubes (nobody wanted the "gopher" effect of the 4-5
foot cubes).

The final pricing of the drywall ended up slightly higher than the initial
cube estimate, but only because network/phone/electricity was run into the
walls for convenience.

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chris-hexx
Open office is the future on average, just because it's the best you can do
for dollar/worker/sqft. Offices with doors, we are told, are too expensive,
because they're accounted for differently as part of the building, not part of
depreciating furnishings and equipment.

Under that constraint, I don't understand why soundproofed full height cubicle
walls with closing doors aren't the obvious compromise between what can be
sold and what can be installed. Is it fire code? Do businesses who care about
productivity spring for actual offices?

There appears to be a niche here, and I don't see why it's not filled.

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caseyf7
The commercial real estate owners are also to blame. They used to have to
build out the office space to a tenants wishes to attract tenants. It is much
cheaper and easier for them to take out the walls/offices and tell the clients
to furnish it how you want. While open offices are cool and there are more
tenants than space, the owners refuse to do anything else.

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falcolas
So, cubicles? I’m game for that. I thought I hated cubicles, once upon a time.
Then they took them away and gave us open office plans. Now, I miss those 5’
tall cubicles I once loathed so much.

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ThrowawayR2
I dunno. The one pictured up at the top is maybe 6' x 6' and the one in the
middle seems closer to a claustrophobic 4' x 4'. I suppose they're better than
open plan but they seem more like cages than office space.

A pox on all the bean counters. I want to go back to the days when I had an 8'
x 8' office with a door that I could lock.

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upofadown
Just stick cotton in your ears...

Only something like 7 dB of sound attenuation so if someone comes over to talk
to you you can still hear them. That 7 dB (about a quarter) really takes the
edge off the noise and makes for a less stressful day. Comfortable and
breathable. You can jamb it in so it is hard to see, if for some reason that
bothers you.

Works outside the office as well to take the edge off traffic noise and even
airplane noise in a pinch.

I forgot and left the cotton in for a trip to the supermarket and even that
was improved. The annoying muzak seemed far away.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Hearing protection is mandatory in the workshop where I work.

Somehow I managed to start wearing earplugs most of the time while I drive,
and more recently have been leaving them in when I go to the supermarket and
when I get home. I'll occasionally sleep with them in too.

It certainly does make a difference, in my experience.

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bradknowles
You wish to make your glass hot desk prison even smaller and more confining?

Remind me why you would want to do that?

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BrendanD
Nope. But they can further marginalize people with mobility issues.

