Joel Spolsky has an interesting blog entry up about searching for new office space. What's particularly interesting about this post is the contrast between Joel's requirements a the average office space requirements. He is a strong proponent of making the workplace attractive[1] and for his new office space he desires private offices for all employees with ample daylight. The best floorplans to meet such requirements allow for at most 30 feet between the building's outer wall and the core of the building to allow for two rows of offices. However, most office builings in New York have much larger areas between the outer wall and the core to maximize cube farm square footage.
It's interesting to see the tangential challenges that face business owners. And I concur with Joel's opinions on the relationship between attractive and distraction-free workspaces and productivity. I've been working from home for the vast majority of my career, but I did have two office jobs. The first was in a building that had offices and cubicals. When I arrived, the cube farm was full, yet there were open offices, so as luck would have it I ended up with a rather large office with floor to ceiling windows looking out from the 11th story (IIRC). The office could have doubled as a meeting room, as it was huge, and for several months it was all mine!! But as the company grew, they eventually moved three additional developers into the same office.
My only other experience that involved not working from home had be bounce around a few two-person offices. I think I had three different offices in a three month span (moving offices - another productivity drain). Also, constantly moving offices means you don't get to really know your office mate. Joel also espouses the benefits of natural light, and I hearily concur. Working in an office that's cut off from sunlight feels like working in a cave. This is kind of nice if you're a night owl and saunder into work around 4:00 PM, but if you get your most productive work done in the morning or early afternoon hours (like yours truly), then cave-like offices can definitely be a drain on productivity.
So what is Joel to do? How can he balance the real-world topography of office buildings in New York with his lofty requirements? I wonder if he could 'cohabitate' with another company? Joel's crew can have the sunlight offices and the other company can have the dank inner offices or cubes. Or maybe they can pipe in sunlight somehow... solatubes or whatnot.