Visited an IBM office in San Francisco, near market street iirc, back in 2006 on a study trip, cubicles everywhere and a promise of a bigger cubicle, a cubicle with view of a window or maybe even a corner office if you had X years at the company. It all seemed pretty ridiculous to everyone in my class.<p>But this seems equally ridiculous, worked 4 places before starting my own company, and open office spaces were a thing in all of them. They ranged from absolutely horrible to fantastic. Good noise canceling headphones can cancel out most sounds, but there&#x27;s no &quot;cure&quot; for visual disturbances, which for me (and a good part of my former colleagues), are almost as bad for my concentration as sounds. So in the worst open office spaces, there was always a &quot;race&quot; to get the best spots, whenever anyone moved places. By good spots I mean spots away from the main walking paths and a place where no one walks behind you and there&#x27;s no visual stimuli other than maybe a window to gaze out of when wrestling with some weird bug in your mind.<p>Of course you can go in a meeting room when you want absolute isolation, but working on code it is awesome having two big monitors as well as peace and quiet, both audio and visual (or maybe I just have the attention span of a goldfish).<p>The best designed open office space I&#x27;ve worked in was the Spotify office in Stockholm, Sweden, squad areas closed on three sides, open on the fourth and with a little sofa corner and mini meeting room in each: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tech.eu&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2014&#x2F;05&#x2F;2014-05-07-11.19.29.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tech.eu&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2014&#x2F;05&#x2F;2014-05-07-11.19.2...</a>