The once-trendy open office has taken quite a beating in the last few years. Huge, undivided rooms. Long tables lined up with laptops.
Not a wall in sight. Once the darling of agencies, startups, and big companies trying to be cool, the layout is now “destroying the workplace,” a “trap,” or quite simply, “dead.”
These articles and the hundreds like them cite multiple studies showing that contrary to their intent, open offices hinder productivity, produce a sense of emotional isolation, and basically get in the way of anybody getting anything done.