The need for such nontraditional work environments reflects more than just the lifestyle tastes of younger high-tech workers. Space designers agree that the very nature of the work, especially at fast-changing Internet companies, requires radically different spaces for intense activity, be it work or play. Outside their shared office space, however, are broad, free-form spaces furnished with chairs, sofas and tables in bright primary colors.
All furniture is modular and movable.
The huts meet the need for private, silent, cave-like space for the intensive work of design, Internet codewriting and engineering, while the open spaces function as relief space, with room for play and for creative collaboration. First is the focus on how a client's employees work, alone and together. So they want to provide an environment where employees are comfortable, but are still stimulated and creative. One increasingly important way to do this is to disregard the traditional emphasis on corporate real estate, he says, in which more and better space is an index of an individual's organizational status. Instead, the planning of new space at high-tech firms begins by studying employees' work styles and interaction patterns.