CREJ - Journal

MARCH 2015 \ BUILDING DIALOGUE \

proceeded to tough out life in the bullpen for a whole three

days. “It was like a zoo,” he claimed. Seemingly unable to do his

job in the open culture, he took his skills elsewhere.

Just to be clear, adding huddle rooms, libraries or hybrid

zones to an already open or mixed-plan layout is usually

not an adequate design alternative to the characteristics of a

traditional private office. The private office is a familiar and

self-contained entity. It can vary from austere to opulent de-

pending on what you put in it, on it, or against it, but it’s still

a “private” office. It has its place and tweaking any one of the

current open designs to supplant it likely will not meet the

intended expectations of the whole.

On the other hand, a fixed office is not for everyone. Most

millennials, it’s probably safe to say, would favor a flexible, open

environment with spaces leaning toward the “collaborative.”

That term, by the way, seems to conjure up images both good

and evil from those who must embrace it in the workplace.

Moreover, collaboration and privacy do not necessarily have to

be mutually exclusive. The design of the modern law office is

ample proof of that, for example. Private offices can play well

with most every open system, depending on the design, the

products, the culture of the operation and the preferences of

its principal players.

More collaborative spaces do not definitively lead to in-

creased productivity. That’s been borne out by the results of

countless ongoing studies not only here in the U.S., but all over

the world.

In aWashington Post column late last year, advertising writ-

er Lindsay Kaufman wrote of her own privacy crisis: “I was

forced to trade in my private office for a seat at a long, shared

table. It felt like my boss had ripped off my clothes and left me

standing in my skivvies.” The title of the piece was “Google got

it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace.”

While that might appear a bit too dramatic, it actually

probably isn’t. The private office isn’t coming back because it’s

always been here, and it’s not going away any time soon. At

least not without a fight.

TRENDS

in Private Office

Brad Nichol

Private offices are still coveted spaces.