Comment Let the environment fit the task. (Score 1) 420
As an enginner my ideal work environment would consist of communal spaces were you can talk and interact with other people to brainstorm and review ideas. Kind of like a coffee shop vibe with whiteboards and projectors or TV's where you can share your screen. Then also have places similar to quiet study rooms at college where you can hide away when you really need to focus on detailed tasks. I run relativly resource intensive CAD software and it easily runs these days on a $2k laptop. Any intensive FEA gets sent to a cluster anyway.