Many organizations, private, public and otherwise has chosen to create open office concepts in their workplaces. The organizations office workers congregate in the spaces daily.

The concept of private offices with doors has been replaced with hoteling spaces.  The idea is you make a reservation, meet in private behind closed doors and then go back to your open office.

Pros and Cons

Apparently, open concept spaces encourage collaboration. and they are cheaper to maintain, and of course you need less space, that is you can get more workspaces per square foot versus private offices.

The open space can be equipped with more social amenities that can be enjoyed by all ( shared posting boards, open coffee and snack locations, comfortable couches and other furmiture).

On the other hand, they are in a way incestuous, everyone is joined with everyone else.  Often you can’t help see what is on others computer screens, overhear their calls or conversations they have with both your and their colleagues.

When someone is not around in these open spaces,  it is quickly known and in this day of preeminent usage of social media people reported to  others through text messaging.  It is to some degree worse than a spy network.

Collaboration

Personally I am very familiar with open concept work spaces and have enjoyed both private  offices, semi private cubicles and fully open workspaces at various points through out my career.

In all cases, collaboration with comrades in arms was never improved or decreased by the office space design.  I did notice though the level of interoffice speculation (aka gossip) was always significantly higher the more open the workspace.