[bryanlarsen]

One of Spolsky's articles pointed out that hotels are also large buildings that manage to get an outside window on every room...

[bartonfink]

If you think about it, that analogy doesn't really work. The rooms that guests stay in are almost all along the outside because guests are paying customers. The janitor's storage rooms, room service kitchens, elevator shafts, mechanical access corridors and other such workspaces are located on the inside in the less valuable parts of the building. Not every room has an outside window - only the rooms for VIP's, which is oddly similar to the situation in most office buildings.

[bryanlarsen]

Offices also have janitor storage rooms, elevator shafts, dining rooms, et cetera. They also have meeting rooms, labs, server rooms that can be located in the centre.

[Joeri]

You can do a lot by varying the shape of a building. The office building that I work in is a giant H. I'm next to a window pretty much anywhere I go.

[mark-r]

As desirable as windows are, they're also conductors of heat/cold. I'll bet that office is uncomfortable and very expensive to run.

[bmj]

Except many of those are new construction that are designed to be long and narrow. Most existing office buildings were not designed that way.

[bryanlarsen]

I think that was Spolsky's point. Why weren't they designed that way? They should be.

[RogerL]

I guess I will just email the architect of my building and tell them they did it wrong. I should have sunlight when?

edit: longer answer - I work in Mountain View, where there is huge competition for buildings thanks to Google. Small companies get the leftovers, and beggers can't be choosers.

[baddox]

Hotels also tend to have extremely long hallways, lots of relatively small floors, and few rooms larger than a bedroom.