Open offices were supposed to be the wave of the future. No cubicles! Vice presidents democratically sitting at shared tables next to interns! Ideas are generated more easily when there are no walls between them! Plus, you get that tranquil, airy vibe, and you can fit a ping-pong table almost anywhere!
Alas, it was a swindle. Open offices are a sham. With no quiet corner offices to hold meetings, they’re loud, theft-prone, and lack oft-necessary privacy. And as a result, over the past few years, we’ve seen a boom in a new kind of office interior accessory. Corporate furnishings companies have architectedmany, many solutions to the open office problem–and now, we have one more: these soundproof Wall Box pods by Vank.
At first glance, they’re attractive in a “we’re a dot-com that just got its first Series B check” kind of way. Upholstered in geometric patterns, both inside and out, they surely evoke soft and fuzzy feelings of coziness, all while mitigating noise up to 55 db, or the volume of a conversation. Meanwhile, the glass walls allow light to pass through, celebrating the negative space of an open office environment. Basically, all of this means that you can drop a bunch of these pods into an open concept workspace, and you won’t feel like you’re suddenly suffocating inside a sea of bank safes.