Journal rho's Journal: The Perfect Office 1
Nice article on the perfect office, lots of ideas.
One thing that seemed to be consistent is the idea that individual offices are key. This is true--we do better with personal space than with too much openness. Sometimes, however, that's not possible. Cubicles are a lower-cost solution to real offices. Notice I said "lower cost", not "low cost". A fully tricked out cubicle runs about $8000, and that's not for the fancy stuff. The walls, furniture and installation is spendy. It's just spendier for dedicated offices, using traditional construction.
So, if you're in cubicle hell, how do you deal with the distractions? When I was working in a cube, I found the best solution was to have as a general policy that if I was wearing my Panic Hat, it meant that unless the building was on fire, it's better to not disturb me. I'd put on the Panic Hat, headphones, and work dilligently until the crisis was over. My co-workers were perfecly willing to comply. (I was the only nerd in a small department of a big company.) If you have a bunch of real assholes, this doesn't work, but assuming semi-normal co-workers, an official arrangement that deals with those times when you really, really need isolation can work nearly as well as an office door.
Cubicles don't have to be expensive... (Score:2)
Following the DotCom bust, there are a number of agencies that broker used cubicles that are in great shape for a much lower price--they go into companies that go belly up and buy it for a pennies on the dollar.
We purchased our current cubicles--nothing special, just walls, tabletops and a couple of closing shelves for $800-1200 each.
Just my $0.02.
-buf