Honestly after being in cubicles, and then experiencing an 'open office' where it's just rows of desks crammed up against each other... I don't understand all the complaints about cubicles. I love them now. Open office is a horrible regression.
An anedcote: my boss was PM for building a new building and his claim was that offices with sheetrock and (steel) studs was cheaper than cubes.<p>We still had cubes. Because you have to have cubes.<p>And of course the Edifice Complex held - we were sold before everything on the building was done.
The article alludes to, but glosses over the fact that the original vision was a <i>reaction</i> to the terrible open office approach.<p>The article does chronicle the sad perversion into cubicle sterility.