I believe Joel Spoelsky (I think) had something different too, where it wasn't a real private office with a huge space and thick walls but something with thinner walls that let light in but were opaque
I'm sure you can probably also work with a local university that has an industrial design program. Maybe some of their students can design cheap portable structures that are easy to assemble, cheap to build, aesthetically pleasing, and yet offers a decent amount of both auditory and visual privacy?
The cynic in me thinks that, in most places, it would be like the Better Off Ted episode where the bosses decided it was too risky to let people "just do whatever the hell they wanted", but they could express their individuality through one of four preselected and inoffensive themes: Green Bay Packers, cats, space, and race cars.
I think people who have the problem of open work spaces wouldn't mind something as uniform and boring as a cubicle or a near equivalent since it's seen as a lesser evil.
Maybe there's a good alternative that's a cross between a real private office and a traditional cubical?
I know at Pixar a lot of employees have their own huts. https://thedreamofpixar.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/who-ever-sa... When you take a weekend or two to build it yourself, it's not that expensive.
I believe Joel Spoelsky (I think) had something different too, where it wasn't a real private office with a huge space and thick walls but something with thinner walls that let light in but were opaque
I'm sure you can probably also work with a local university that has an industrial design program. Maybe some of their students can design cheap portable structures that are easy to assemble, cheap to build, aesthetically pleasing, and yet offers a decent amount of both auditory and visual privacy?