In defense of flexible office space

The debate between fully-open and fully-enclosed work spaces misses the point, David Craig argues. What really matters is flexibility:

The bigger flaw, though, in recent criticisms of open workplaces is the underlying idea that there’s only one choice: open or enclosed. Work is invariably a combination of individual work, collaboration, coördination, creativity, and other things, all of which can take a variety of forms, sometimes in just one person in one day. As research done by CannonDesign with 14 organizations over the past year has shown, the average employee does want fewer distractions, but they also want 35% more frequent interactions within their teams; they want more energy and buzz in the workplace than less, but they also want the flexibility to escape to a quiet place from time to time. What they definitely don’t want is one space that’s just open or just enclosed.

This is very much in line with what Jason Fried and David Heinemeier write in their book Remote.