I'm a developer who recently moved from a large open space to a small quiet room with just a handful of people. To me it feels like a big downgrade. I loved the constant chatter in the open space, and I was much more aware of what the whole team is concerned with. I felt that it was very important for setting my work priorities right. Meetings and emails are much more restrictive than just sitting next to everyone whose work interacts with mine. And it didn't impede my coding at all, I could always put on some noise (SimplyRain) and tune out.
I'm a developer who recently moved from a large open space to a small quiet room with just a handful of people. To me it feels like a big downgrade. I loved the constant chatter in the open space
I'm going to guess that there's some individual variation in preference for quiet / noise. I'm the kind of person who can't really get deep work done, like writing proposals or novels, in noisy, busy environments. I look at all the people, listen to the sounds, and generally can't get into a state of flow.
That being said, I've met lots of writers who say they can't work in quiet rooms because they need some stimulation or they go nuts. Lev Grossman, for example, has talked about writing most of the Magicians trilogy (the first one is good! https://jakeseliger.com/2009/08/28/the-magicians-lev-grossma...) in coffee shops.
I suspect that on average most people would be better served by quiet focus, but that a fair number would not be.
If this is true—anyone doing industrial organization research may have a research topic here—I don't know how it would be implement organizationally, especially because offices and layouts are almost instantly going to be linked up with status and hierarchy issues, and most people will want the higher status option, regardless of whether it fits them well or not.
Coffee shops are very different; the noise is not that of colleagues but of random strangers. The effect can be almost like white noise. Colleagues talk about things that you can't help but get involved with.
