Office Space For Creativity & Innovation

Google set out to create an environment similar to a university, where students have access to world-class cultural, athletic, and academic facilities...and spend most of their time working their butts off - a workspace that is crowded, messy, and a petri dish for creativity. 

"Offices should be designed to maximize energy and interactions, not for isolation and status. Smart creatives thrive on interacting with each other. The mixture you get when you cram them together is combustible, so a top priority must be to keep them crowded. 

When you can reach out and tap someone on the shoulder, there is nothing to get in the way of communications and the flow of ideas. The traditional office layout, with individual cubicles and offices, is designed so that the steady state is quiet. Most interactions between groups of people (the hallway/water-cooler/walking through the parking lot meeting). This is exactly backward; the steady state should be highly interactive, with boisterous, crowded offices brimming with hectic energy. Employees should always have the option to retire to a quiet place when they've had it with all the group stipulation, which is why our offices should include plenty of retreats: nooks in the cafes and micro-kitchens, small conference rooms, outdoor terraces and spaces, and even nap pods. But when they go back to their desks, they should be surrounded by their teammates."