[Touche]

This reminds me of the hip news organization on House of Cards where everyone is sitting around on stair steps and such. I wonder how productive such an environment is for anyone, and whether the decision to design an office in such a way is solely for the sake of image.

[cookiecaper]

Considering it's not a real office, yes, it's purely for image. It's meant to communicate "Slugline is so creative and forward-thinking that they don't even need non-beanbag furnishings!", and contrast against the Post's button-down, cubicle hell style.

The sad part is that some people see things like that in TV shows and try to duplicate them in the real world, without realizing that devices that work to communicate something on television don't necessarily actually work for doing the thing that the TV people are supposedly doing.

[fish2000]

Funny that – I often imagine that a nicely productive compromise would be a scheme like the SCDP office on “Mad Men“: mostly private offices, but with a pseudo-open “Creative Lounge“ that facilitates collaboration but retains basic human stuff like doors, for some sense of sonic isolation.

That particular plan is far from perfect – they have often used the lack of isolation (e.g. people peeping on neighbors through ceiling-level windows) as a plot device – but I still like the actual looks of it, based on actual experience with the open-plan-induced drudgery discussed in the article.

[spb]

> like the SCDP office on “Mad Men“: mostly private offices, but with a pseudo-open “Creative Lounge“ that facilitates collaboration but retains basic human stuff like doors, for some sense of sonic isolation.

Except SCDP's creative lounge doesn't have doors, see the floor plan: http://www.jordanorlando.com/other/scdp/

[liveoneggs]

small (permanent) war rooms for workgroups and private offices for management/shared offices for drones (2-3/office) is a great setup, imho.

I worked at a place that did big war rooms per project and had tons of empty "home" cubes where you went for an hour or two per day to do non-primary work. I think a fixed-time system in the groups would be best.

[theg2]

I work in a news organization. Seating is scarce, the environment is loud and distracting, and going on vacation means you just might be moved to a new desk when you return. Fortunately as a developer my computer is off limits to most but the open office layout completely wrecks my anxiety and pushes my stress levels through the roof while my productivity plummets from distraction.