From private offices and typing pools to rows of cubicles to the 21st century’s open architecture and standing desks, the question of what kind of office environment makes workers happier and more productive seems to continually evolve. A slightly closer look indicates there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to designing the right office for everyone. Not only have we come to expect a different trend every few years, but sometimes everything old is new again.

Workplace Evolution

Then again, the evolution of the physical work space has reflected changes in the nature of the day-to-day tasks that American workers have performed since the mid-19th century, when the U.S. embarked on its transition from an agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse. Forward-looking architects like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright started designing office buildings with the employee’s needs in mind from the earliest days of the 20th century.

However, that was more the exception than the rule. It wasn’t until the post-World War II period of the 1950s and ’60s that the modern office as we think of it really took shape. First in urban settings (later followed by a suburban sprawl), managers and corporate officers occupied private offices (and a lot of the available natural light), with staffers consigned to smaller rooms and, increasingly, partitioned cubicles, ostensibly to encourage more open communication among colleagues.

The size and location (e.g., a corner space) of a boss’s office said a great deal about the occupant’s place in the corporate pecking order. Concurrently, employees started to receive retirement, health and other benefits as never before. The factory floor was slowly starting to yield to the information age.

The Onset of “Cubicle Rage”

By the 1990s, the proverbial cubicle farm had taken over the office landscape. In the post-modern, post-Industrial age characterized by white-collar and Baby Boom malaise, more and more workers were being squeezed into ever-smaller boxes, with lower partitions, less and less privacy, and fluorescent lighting. This bleak scenario was memorably lampooned in the office-set comic strip “Dilbert,” with the idea of pent-up, desensitized “cubicle rage” assuming responsibility for mass workplace shootings, of all things.

Then came the dot-com era, the World Wide Web, and the rise of the youth-oriented technology culture–and with them the Silicon Valley preference for more “transparency” in the workplace. That was coupled with an environment that offered equal time for work and recreation. Make way for foosball tables, “open-plan architecture” and the demise of the hated cubicle altogether.

An insightful article from a recent edition of The New York Times Magazine  entitled “The Post-Cubicle Office and Its Discontents” traces the development of the 21st-century office. As the 20th century motored on, employers and architects tried to make the psychological needs of the work force a priority as the often-lamented wage gap established a foothold in the U.S.

The article's author came to an unexpected conclusion: enclosed spaces that lend themselves to quiet work and confidential conversations (that would be you, HR and Legal departments) aren’t so 20th-century after all. It seems that the more openness and transparency imposed on employees during the day at the office, the more privacy and alone-time they seek.

More and more, contemporary offices find themselves offering closed-off rooms and spaces for a myriad of uses–be it a conference call, a nap, or a place to concentrate and escape the electronic leash of e-mail and phones.

Ethonomics for All

While no one expects a wholesale clamoring for the gray blandness of an impersonal sea of cubicles anytime soon, the author comes to an interesting conclusion: that perhaps by creating a home-away-from-home ambience at the likes of Google or LinkedIn, with amenities often found at high-end resorts or spas, employers are perhaps discouraging their work force from wanting to leave at all.

And that means psychologically as much as physically, though many more professionals now work from home at least part of the time. One design firm actually coined the term “ethonomics” to describe the contemporary office mentality that’s designed to make the work place inviting, healthful and more “ethical.”

At the same time, the Times article questions whether that type of mindset, accompanied by the growing popularity of office wellness programs and the quest to make workers ever more content during the work day, are actually giving the company more control over employees’ lives than many of us prefer or realize. Is it possible that today’s Silicon Valley is, in some ways, as destructive as yesterday’s sweat shops?

An article last year from the Huffington Post offered up similar conclusions, as well as a reminder that ever-smaller computers have conveniently enabled employers to continue shrinking employees’ personal work space. Rethinking the open-architecture plan is long overdue.

The article cites studies that show that less privacy makes it harder for many individuals to concentrate and get work done. But more than that, designing a successful work space today is about realizing that different individuals (and departments, for that matter) have different needs. And one large open-air room–as pleasant to the senses as it may be–cannot be all things to all people.   

It’s a valid point. Newsrooms have traditionally been mostly open-air in design to encourage rapid and timely communication, which reporting and delivering news depends on. The same goes for financial trading floors.

Ad agencies and marketing firms require breakout rooms that encourage brainstorming. An HR or benefits professional obviously can’t fire someone in the middle of a common work area, and needs a private space. The takeaway from this discussion is that, by designing the ideal office for the 21st century worker, it’s important to not throw out the baby (i.e., the employee) with the bath water of a structured environment.

Human beings will always require a modicum of privacy–whether at home or, perhaps even more so these days, at the office.