I guess the main point is balance - not everybody agrees about the exact point where it is, but everybody agrees the extremes are bad.
An isolated room in a corner is not good - though it may be useful for "development sprints". An "auditorium" shared between sales, development, marketing, and sometimes even support - people which talk on the phone all the time - is terrible.
Best productivity I ever achieved was during a time I shared a room with 2 co-workers that shared similar knowledge but worked in slightly different areas of the product line, and one was not even working in the same project as me. So we did exchange ideas, but each one was doing each one's part of the equation independently.
I considered some other opportunities before joining my current employer, and some of them were discarded due to (among other reasons) the huge open offices with 30-40+ employees on the same floor.
An isolated room in a corner is not good - though it may be useful for "development sprints". An "auditorium" shared between sales, development, marketing, and sometimes even support - people which talk on the phone all the time - is terrible.
Best productivity I ever achieved was during a time I shared a room with 2 co-workers that shared similar knowledge but worked in slightly different areas of the product line, and one was not even working in the same project as me. So we did exchange ideas, but each one was doing each one's part of the equation independently.
I considered some other opportunities before joining my current employer, and some of them were discarded due to (among other reasons) the huge open offices with 30-40+ employees on the same floor.