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The evolving open office

The New York Times has an interesting article on the new office environment. It has less space per worker, no private offices, and more daylight and gathering spaces. The story looks at Seattle office spaces, including those of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, architecture firm NBBJ, and Russell Investments.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation atrium. Photo by Benjamin Benschneider, courtesy NBBJ

This entry was posted by Lynn on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Architecture, Engineering, Government, Neighborhoods, Planning, Seattle lifestyle, Zoning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Matt the Engineer

    Good article. There’s a science to sound and office activity that I think hasn’t been fully developed yet. Office culture can come directly from the spaces we inhabit – large sparse spaces can feel like libraries and reduces interaction. The best work environment I’ve been in had small cubicles bunched together in groups partially surrounded by full walls – we’d work and joke together just by talking, leading to a slightly noisy environment, but one where collaboration was very strong. The worst work environment I’ve had was large private offices, where I’d have to get up and walk to someone else’s office to talk, or worse – call them.

    Once you’ve been in an environment filled with “buzz”, it’s tough to go back. I miss asking my designer any question that pops into my head, which occasionally turns from a conversation about a small detail of design to large discoveries.