
Ask HN: How to best design our next office? - jharohit
We fell into the pitfall of having an open office and the moment we went beyond 5 people, it has been nothing but catastrophic to productivity. Even worst our meeting area is open too and terrible for having client meetings.<p>There are some very obvious benefits too in terms of rapidity of feedback and collaboration between employees.<p>As we are moving to a new office, what are some best practices to design it so we can get the max benefits?
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photonios
I work at a company that employs roughly 50 people. Most of them are software
engineers. We grew from 3 people to 50 in 3 years. We designed a new office
and moved into it a few months ago.

Here are some of the things we did:

\- Desks are all in rooms with at most 10 desks in it. Most rooms are smaller
and have ~5 desks in them. All these rooms are completely sealed off with
sound proofed walls. The temperature can be controlled in each room.

\- Throughout the office there are so called phone booths. Relatively small
booths, good for quick calls. A single booth fits two people. All booths are
completely sound proof. You could yell in there and nobody would hear you.

\- Flooring is solid. Rolling your chair around or walking around does not
produce a lot of noise.

\- Water coolers everywhere. You're not far from a glass of cold (mineral)
water.

\- Lots of natural light. All windows are from the ceiling to the floor and
all the rooms with desks are at these big windows.

There are some pictures here:
[https://www.facebook.com/todorcosminstudio/posts/24735875227...](https://www.facebook.com/todorcosminstudio/posts/2473587522720084)

The pictures don't show the working spaces very well, just the communal spaces
that are all separated from where people have their desks.

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askafriend
In addition to other suggestions, give employees a $400 headphone credit to
get headphones of their choice. Have a few noise canceling options on hand if
they don't have a specific preference.

A benefit like this is part of the office design. Every company I've worked at
that's had an open office plan had this kind of benefit as standard for all
employees.

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auslegung
I really enjoyed our dev room. It was an open floor plan but there were only 6
of us and we pair programmed all the time. The sales floor was an open floor
plan and there were about 25 people in there, and it felt like chaos to me.
I'm not sure what everyone else wants, but I wouldn't want a large open floor
plan, and I wouldn't want a bunch of cubicles. Maybe there are modular options
now? Japanese shoji screens maybe. I recognize the silliness but I think
there's some possibilities here.

If you like the rapid feedback and collaboration, have you thought about ways
to encourage that without having an open office? Maybe have some collaboration
work zones, some cubicle pits, and a really attractive kitchen area with free
snacks/drinks that makes people want to hang out sometimes. Perhaps let
everyone have a dedicated desk, but lots of flexibility to work in different
parts of the office. I've heard Valve desks are all on wheels so people can
move them anywhere they want.

It may help others answer better if they know how many people in the company
and what departments are going into this office.

~~~
jharohit
so we are 15 but will soon 2-3x in the next 2 years. also have a mix of
hardware and software people with sales, ops and marketing.

shoji screens are interesting but don't have much in terms of noise
cancellation.

we are currently thinking precisely as you mentioned - private areas with
central collaboration pits or areas. the value thing sounds interesting - will
check it out.

~~~
auslegung
Yeah, shoji screens won't do much for noise, but maybe there are ones designed
to cancel noise? I'm sure an office acoustic expert could place acoustic foam
in strategic spots and really quiet the place.

Here is valve's handbook,
[http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)

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matt_s
Rapidity of feedback for some means constant interruptions for others.

Ideally you would want a way for engineers to have private spaces but also
have team rooms. That takes a lot of floor space so open-ish cubes surrounding
an open space closed off from other spaces is a likely solution.

Attempt at ascii design:

    
    
      -------------
      | C | C | C |
      |           |
      |   open    Door
      |           |
      | C | C | C |
      -------------
    

Open space could have a whiteboard wall, table, comfy chairs. The team could
determine quiet times, lunches, etc. as they want. Some people might want to
not be in a room all day, provide other open spots for people to use. Planning
for the space might mean small, medium and large versions of "team rooms" and
large ones could be for large teams or just conference space.

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slipwalker
i found out that the best possible layout i have ever worked on is a large
corridor in the middle, with closed offices for each squad on both sides (
meaning mini-open-offices per squad ) isolated from each other. The offices
are separated from the corridor by a glass wall and glass door. Each squad
work around a large table ( for 8 to 10 people ), with wall to wall
whiteboards ( the walls between offices ) and a wide screen TV for
presentations.

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m463
Cubes with walls that absorb noise.

The walls should be above your head when standing, so a sit-stand desk isn't
noticeable to neighbors (let alone stare at them).

sit-stand desks.

~~~
jharohit
already have sit-stand desks for most! absolutely love them

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brudgers
Best practice is hiring an architect...but acoustic drop down ceiling tiles
and carpet help.

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Digg_mov
we can do it pitfall

