7 ms·
I work for Viasat; all of our new-build offices in the past few years have been designed around what we call the neighborhood concept. A neighborhood is a set
by wskemper 8y ago
I work for Viasat; all of our new-build offices in the past few years have been designed around what we call the neighborhood concept. A neighborhood is a set of individual offices (maybe 60sqft-ish?) with three solid walls, and one glass/wood wall with a sliding door. All the offices open into a central room that can be outfitted in a bunch of different ways. There are neighborhoods of different sizes, and basically, each team gets a neighborhood to themselves. The whole concept was developed through a series of experiments that took several years.
Some teams make use of the space better than others, of course, but for my group it's been a huge boon to our collaborative culture. The offices are well-insulated, so you don't need headphones to achieve quiet, but if you want to, you can leave your door open and hear what your teammates are discussing at any time.
Over time we're upgrading our older facilities to the same model, but in general there are few open-plan offices or cube farms in the company, and I highly doubt we're going to build more. Many years ago, our founders made it a company priority to give folks a door they can close, to get away from "it all" and focus.
- shoo 8y agooh my, it sounds pretty close to what's described in peopleware. give people both options of isolated, private space, and shared space, and let them move between them as they wish.
- cs44 8y agoGreat book. Right up there with Mythical Man Month.
- rdl 8y agoThat's the office concept I've always wanted to build. It would be cool if someone from the company could document it/blog post/etc. -- might be good for recruiting too. (Especially since Viasat does pretty cool stuff -- excited about the new Exede sat expanding coverage...) I was thinking it would make sense to have roller doors or some other way to open the entire side of the office (on both sides -- "neighborhood" and "hallway" if the occupant wanted.)
- sametmax 8y ago+1. I'm interested in a rough blueprint too.
- blitzo 8y agoI find this https://imgur.com/CvtAHgZ https://imgur.com/CvtAHgZ IKEA Mandal divider turn-into cubicle reach a compromising middle ground between open and closed space.
- SJetKaran 8y agoThis seems like a really neat model to try out.
- rdl 8y agoI'd like more auditory isolation, though. (Ideally I want to be able to have a private conversation whenever I want within my office, without disturbing anyone else, and then have others able to do the same.)
- IntelMiner 8y agoPersonally I feel like that thing would be even worse Everyone walking past and around would cause the light streaming in through the gaps to randomly flicker That would be endlessly distracting for me, personally at least
- regularfry 8y agoIt sounds like a hub and spokes model. That's been known to be close to ideal for quite a long time, so it's good to see people actually using it!
- kabdib 8y agoI worked in a similar environment at Apple, when Infinite Loop first opened: Pods with offices that surrounded a central courtyard, which was furnished with sofas, chairs and whiteboards. Each office had a simple (and heavy) door alongside a tall and narrow window. The door provided effective sound isolation, and years later I realized the window was a psychological link to what was going on in the inner "courtyard", after spending time in a completely closed office at Microsoft. The message at Apple seemed to be "Okay, we know you need to concentrate on work, but remember that you're part of a community" while the office of the particular group I was in at Microsoft seemed to say "Please just sit there and write code and do email -- we will feed you under the door". Architecture matters in the weirdest ways, and sometimes tiny tweaks make a big difference.
- kpil 8y ago+1 for the Microserfs reference!
- noir_lord 8y agoI'd forgotten that book existed,I need to read it again, it's up there with "office space" for humourous tech related media.
- cdeutsch 8y agoWhat book are you referring to? Sounds good :)
- kabdib 8y agoI believe the gap at the bottom of the door was indeed wider at Microsoft . . .
- logfromblammo 8y agoFlat foods only.
- mark-r 8y ago
- majewsky 8y ago> maybe 60sqft-ish? For those of us with non-ridiculous units, that's 5-6 m².
- blattimwind 8y agoThat's rather small, even for a single-person office.
- danielbarla 8y agoSure, however I'm currently sitting in a kind of cubicle (on an open plan floor), with 4 developers sharing what seems to be about a 3.5m x 3.5m space (I'm 1.8m, and if we all stand up and put our arms out, they'd touch), which brings it to just under 13m2, or 3.2 m2 per person. There are teams that are more cramped than even this, which I find pretty sad.
- noir_lord 8y agoMy office is 4m by 8m and there is only me in it. Boss was happy for me to work somewhere quiet and the only space we had was an unused meeting room that takes up up half the second floor of our second building. It's glorious.
- alex_hitchins 8y agoThat would be an incredible luxury to some people. I've worked from what most people would call a shelf before.
- hshehehjdjdjd 8y agoSame here. A bar in a coffee shop would have compared favorably to that desk in size and ergonomics. Craziest thing about it was how at the time I was getting paid absolute tons of money, but in many ways my status at work felt more like my desk than my paycheck. I don’t know what that tells you about the human psyche, or mine. Rationally, I wouldn’t have traded much of the money for a better desk, but emotionally the money just felt like a number on a screen going up, while the desk felt visceral.
- K0nserv 8y agoThe new Skyscanner(my employer) London office also uses this setup and the times I've been in London and worked from that office I've really enjoyed it. I work in the main office in Edinburgh which is unfortunately an open floor plan, but hopefully we'll get the same layout as London. I feel it strikes a very good balance between the intentions of an open office plan and the need for a quite space to get work done.
- shaklee3 8y agoI work for viasat as well, and I think your group is the only one using that collaboration area :).
- rjbwork 8y agoDo you think you could get us some pictures of a neighborhood? Would be quite interested to see it empty before or after hours as an example of how things look.
- wskemper 8y agoI tried finding some online but it looks like we haven't published any. I'll need to get permission; our customer base cares very much about facility security. Let me see what I can rustle up.
- wskemper 8y agoThis comment dug up some of the photos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16879350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16879350. They're a good representation.
- Bartweiss 8y agoThis is an awesome idea. From what I've seen, the Pixar offices are actually very similar. Probably more stylized, because Pixar, but it's a mix of unowned open spaces for collaboration or socializing and clustered office spaces. It seems like an exceedingly good answer for teams where "water cooler" collaboration is genuinely important, but so is silent work time.
- nunya213 8y agoThoughts on David Dewane's Eudaimonia Machine concept? https://medium.com/@jsmathison/i-cant-stop-dreaming-of-eudaimonia-84d9059b551c https://medium.com/@jsmathison/i-cant-stop-dreaming-of-eudai...
- wmli 8y agoI found these pictures after some digging.. would you say they are representative? http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2c-viasat-offices-2-1500x800.jpg http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2c-viasat-offic... http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2d-viasat-offices-3-revised-1500x800.jpg http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2d-viasat-offic... Architecture firm's site: http://sca-sd.com/portfolio/viasat-2/ http://sca-sd.com/portfolio/viasat-2/ Looks very spacious, not sure if it's feasible in high cost (/ sq ft) offices?
- cs44 8y agoAre you hiring? (Half heartedly joking...)
- wskemper 8y agoWe absolutely are! Our list of open positions is on our website: https://www.viasat.com/careers/openings https://www.viasat.com/careers/openings. I'd post my usual spiel about our Seattle office (where I work now), but we're renting coworking space up here, so I don't want to bait and switch.
- wskemper 8y agoYes that's it! Now I've got a bunch of other places to throw those... :) I don't know the cost, I just experience the value.