[gabriel34]

The article touches upon but does not elaborate on one of the main reasons open designs grew in popularity: money. Increasing population density drives the cost per square meter up and having a dedicated home office, dining room, etc becomes too expensive. Sure you can have lots of rooms if you have the space, but try to cram a family of four in 50 square meters with all these environments and you end up with tiny rooms. A solution would be, as stated on the last paragraph, multi-purpose rooms (e.g. guest bedroom with office)

Off topic: this article is like a fly trap for people who comment without reading the article.