The open office concept, once the darling of cutting-edge tenants, comes in for a lot of criticism these days. Major media outlets fill pages with horror stories about workers who lose productivity in the more social environment or who can’t hear phone conversations due to the background drone of colleagues, with some saying they can’t hear themselves think or have the private talks sometimes necessary in an office.

“We hear a lot about how the open office is terrible for introverts, and how it’s ruining everybody’s life,” HKS Architects Director of Commercial Interiors Kate Davis said.

But the open office is not dead, and interior designers and architects like Davis have begun digging deep into the operations of their corporate clients, helping them move beyond the simple layouts that strand employees in seas of workstations.

“Companies do push back sometimes [against open-office concepts], and I think that’s short-sighted,” Eastlake Studio partner Christina Brown said. “I’ve been in places where the open office concept didn’t work, and it’s usually because it wasn’t thoughtfully done, and there was no buy-in from the workforce.”

Doing open office right involves a heavy focus on small details like lighting, and a lot of upfront research, a time-consuming process that some companies would prefer to avoid. But designers say it is only after understanding how everyone in a given office completes their daily tasks that architects can create a series of unique spaces that promote efficiency and health, as well as privacy.

HKS, a Dallas-based architectural firm, went so far as to transform in 2017 its Chicago office at 125 South Clark St. into a “living lab,” an experimental space where it constantly tests and measures the impact of office changes on its roughly 50 employees.