Check out this piece in The Times HES. Some people think that open plan offices are the way to go– they are green, cheap, keep people from goofing off with the door shut, and promote the sharing of ideas. Some hate open plan offices because they are noisy and facilitate the spread of diseases. Other people think that while they may be fine for other people, open plan offices are bad for academics, especially for those who work in disciplines that are individualistic (in history, co-authored articles and team-taught courses are rare).
I have mixed feelings about open plan offices. I’m pretty used to my solitary office. It seems to me that new technology may make the traditional academic office obsolete in the near future.
Traditional Academic Office (Pre-Computer Days)
The Past Speaks 
As historians, we look to the past to see how concepts failed or if they were successful. The idea of the open-concept environment, as applied in the Hall-Dennis Report (1968), was clearly not effective despite the good intentions. I wrote a major paper this year about the how the ideals in Canada during the 1960s were evident in the Report, and came across this analysis of the open-concept ‘pod-schools’ (which I actually attended in Chatham).
Tyrrell, Ronald, Frank Johns and Margaret McNally. “Are Open Middle Schools Really Open?” The Elementary School Journal 76, 1 (October 1975): 3-8.