[shoo]

i think i've heard of the ideal of commons + private/quiet space too, if i recall that option is mentioned in peopleware too.

(anecdote: i am currently sitting in low cubicles in the middle of a huge open plan space, with a couple of neighbouring developers, we're surrounded by about two rings of people whose jobs involve talking all day. this is okay for days that descend into endless meetings / firefighting, but pretty nightmarish for work that involves thinking hard about anything)

[cestith]

My company has pretty much everyone in "pods". It's a suite per team with a conference room off the hallway, surrounded by offices with doors around the room. There's a TV in each pod with an HDMI cable in conference table for presentations, meetings, or pair/group hack sessions.

The doors unfortunately aren't the best at blocking loud conversations, but it's still better than trying to concentrate in a loud cubicle farm.

[joezydeco]

I love this idea the most.

I've worked in places where teams have created "war rooms", basically a commandeered conference room where everyone hunkers down around the table and gets the project done (this was when I worked on a mechanical device and we needed to mess with parts and tools).

The benefit of the pod to me is that you can make the closable offices way smaller (desk, small table, couple of chairs) when the doors are open the offices become part of the larger project room. The entire project room can also be closed off for noise, privacy, meetings, stealth, etc.