The claim is made that open offices were designed as a part of the third industrial revolution where skilled people could come together and collaborate. Reports since the 70's have discovered that this is not the case and that such spaces increase stress and reduce productivity.
Another design-based example is open-plan offices. In the push to lower overheads—and under the false assumption that it would encourage better working practices—private rooms were traded for non-divided workspaces. This resulted in environments that increase stress, particularly due to noise. Stress has become the dominant cost to human health at work. A 2016 report found that stress accounted for 37% of all work-related ill-health cases in the UK and 45% of all working days lost due to ill health.Source
In response to Apple's new open planned architecture, Rima Sabina Aouf summarises some scrutiny:
Open-plan offices have become more common since the 1990s but have come under scrutiny in recent years. A recent Haworth's white paper said that open-plan offices are "sabotaging" employees' ability to focus at work, with office workers losing 28 per cent of their productive time due to interruptions and distractions.
Similarly, Gensler's 2016 UK Workplace Survey found that workers were more likely to innovate if they had access to a range of spaces supporting different working styles – including private, semi-private and open-plan environments.
These discussions remind me of the experience described by Aaron Swartz.
