[edderly]

I was watching 'The Pixar Story' the other day and they talked about the campus they opened in 2000. Jobs talked about the importance of 'unplanned interactions' and workplace being key to the success of a creative company.

http://www.armchaircommentary.com/2011/10/amazon-goes-to-pix...

"Main Building

The Pixar campus opened in 2000. It was built on the location of an old canning factory and the factory vibe inspired the architecture. Steve Jobs, one of the Pixar founders was heavily involved in the design. He wanted Pixar's main building to serve as a central gathering place where employees would come several times a day to interact and share ideas. In service of this goal a cafeteria, coffee shop and the employee mail room were clustered within steps of each other within the atrium of the main building. Pixar lore is that Jobs was so obsessed with the idea of all employees venturing to this area at least once a day that he advocated for only having one bathroom on the campus. He was overruled."

[tvon]

For the curious, "The Pixar Story" is available on Netflix Instant

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Pixar_Story/70083532?t...

[microtherion]

On the other hand, more and more offices at Apple are in lockdown areas (where the badge that gives you access to the building does not necessarily give you access). It's going to be interesting to see how these two forces interact with each other. Cafeterias and common areas have been exempt from the lockdown trend, but I'm not sure if this is sufficient in the long term to guarantee enough "unplanned interactions".