There have been studies going back as far as Peopleware and The Timeless Way of Building that suggest people are generally adversely affected when the noise is more than noise they personally generate (e.g. keyboard clicking), and not in their control (e.g. choosing to listen to music may be fine, but when you’re forced to listen to music because the alternative is a distracting conversation between teammates it has adverse effects).

The other thing, especially mentioned in The Timeless Way of Building, is that you need privacy to reach a state of flow. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re isolated or that no one can interrupt you, but it means nothing in your immediate vicinity is triggering your peripheral vision or any sense of a fight vs flight reflex because someone’s walking around right behind you, etc. Most of that research advocates that individuals should be allowed to customize these aspects of their personal space, like privacy, quiet, lighting, ergonomics..

More generally though, it’s not about what works for you or for me. It’s about what we can empirically learn about states of flow, and on that front it’s utterly beyond dispute that open-plan offices are disastrously bad.

Christopher Alexander's work isn't based on empirical studies, though, is it? Never seen any. It's just his, uh, inspired opinion.

In large part yes, you are right, his writing was more qualitative and sociological, sometimes philosophy.

But seeing your comment made me start trying to dig up a 1987 paper from Alexander titled, "Toward a Personal Workplace," and I am actually amazed and unsettled by how hard it is to find anything online. That article surveys more empirical properties of office interiors. But yes, I would look to the studies cited in the Peopleware chapter called, "Bring Back the Door" for the empirical extensions of what Alexander had inspired.

Here's the best link I could find on that thread of Alexander's work:

< http://zeta.math.utsa.edu/~yxk833/Chris.furniture.html >

You aren't kidding about it being hard to find anything about that paper. I tried finding it a couple of years ago and just spent an hour now and had no luck. Thanks for the link I hadn't seen that before...

I see an office one time with oddly long hallways 3 times the height and width one is used to. It had a marble floor that echoed loudly and ended in a Kremlin sized door with a single employee behind it. When I asked why it was that way they explained it was to force the visitor/coworker to repeatedly reconsider if his thing was really worth disruping that person with. To the question if that realy worked the answer was a description of the previous office where coworkers would fly in and out out of convenience. They would stick their head around the corner for 5 word sentences. Apparently productivity went though the roof in the new building.