The researchers believed that physical space was the key to friendship formation; that “friendships are likely to develop on the basis of brief and passive contacts made going to and from home or walking about the neighborhood.”¹ In their view, it wasn’t so much that people with similar attitudes became friends, but rather that people who passed each other during the day tended to become friends and later adopted similar attitudes.
— Adam Alter (2013) How to Build a Collaborative Office Space Like Pixar and Google
Gianandrea’s concept of Social Proximity is fully at play in the best collaborative offices. The space where people work directly influence the happiness and creative potential of teams. This is an aspect that must be considered, too often we try fully digital solutions overlooking these “details”.
I guess there should be more architects out there with this kind of skills.