Yes, the office architecutre is going to change but few will get it right at first.

I feel compelled to respond to this:

"The idea of the worker spending eight or more hours chained to a chair will soon evoke another age, one that will soon be as distant as the workshops of the industrial revolution."

Working from home has me chained to my home office desk for 10 hours a day. Yes, I can get up and do something else but that would probably not be work related. Working from home, to work I have to do it from my desk. When I had an office in the factory I could get away from my desk, go out on the factory floor and observe the workers and inspect the product. It is a struggle to understand if we are maintaining our quality standards from a remote office. Informal dialog about the gripes of the workers is totally absent and suggestions for improvements are much less common when it requires that they be written down and not anonymous. I can keep a verbal conversation secret but everyone knows any e-mail or text is public knowledge. No front line worker is going to call the chief engineers cell phone no matter how many times you claim that you want them too. If you chat them up on the factory floor they are more than willing to spill their guts.

I miss my office at work. My award and trophies decorate the walls. My file cabinets are full of records that I have accumulated over 40 years of work much of which was before we had digital records. Some of my records are hand written in script.

The idea of instead of my office I will have a shared cubicle makes me sad. I don't think it will happen but it could.

TEK