Why were cubicles invented

They make little, bitty cubicles and stuff people in them. Barren, rathole places. And that was just the beginning. During the s, the energy crisis prompted regulations that made buildings more energy efficient and airtight.

More workers meant more infectious disease, too, and the noise levels and lack of light of cubicle-heavy offices made workers less productive. Meanwhile, the average amount of floor space given to workers shrank. Some of those issues—like formaldehyde—were addressed over the years with new materials. And by the time he died in , Propst had spent years apologizing for creating a corporate monster.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. But, how did it come to be in the first place? You can now find brand-new pieces and even used cubicles for sale if you want to boost the sustainability of your business in San Diego.

But first, take a look at this brief history of the cubicle to understand what role it played in the ever-changing office design. Believe it or not, the cubicle dates back to medieval times when European monks used cubicle-like spaces where they used to copy manuscripts.

Renaissance writers also used them and even added curtains to create a more private work area. They reported that this type of space helped them focus on work. However, the office cubicle as we know it was designed in the s as an alternative to large office areas with desks organized in a factory-line layout. The designer was Robert Propst who created this workspace in an attempt to give employees more freedom. He steered a beaten and rusted Ford F pick-up truck along a ridge in New Mexico—somewhat precariously.

The truck at one point had been a turquoise and white two-tone beauty but now showed more rust than paint. His words came carefully and slowly as he considered carefully what to divulge while we bounced along the pocked road a word which is overly generous for that stretch of dirt, sand and rocks. The talk was in preparation for meeting his father, a furniture designer who is often credited in hushed tones around the Herman Miller Headquarters with having invented the office cubicle.

Lawrence Jr. The invention had gone from something people fought for credit over to something they ran from blame for. The slide of the utopian future the Action Office had promised into bleak territory was swift. By the late s a combination of corporate tax incentives that made it appealing to replace furnishings often and the energy crisis, which introduced efficient but airtight buildings, made for a sickening situation.

In some very literal as well as figurative senses. The evermore cheaply-made knockoff cubicles stuffed into increasingly close confines in stagnant, airless offices covered by overhead fluorescent lighting created a Reagan-era hellscape that saw a rash of workers coming down with bizarre chronic illnesses after inhaling the toxic pollutants off-gassing from the bargain-bin cubicles day after day. Probst himself came to regret what the Action Office had become.

They make little, bitty cubicles and stuff people in them. Barren, rathole places. It has taken us nearly a year to find him. A series of tips from old associates and friends led us eventually to an ex-wife living in Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles and then to Lawrence Jr. Everyone we spoke to in connection in any way to the inventor of the cubicle insisted on anonymity for a number of reasons, including death threats.

From the second-floor balcony of her stuccoed condo you could see the waves rolling in. The angry phone calls started right after that. Sometimes the threats came in the mail, though, or in notes left on the front door. We moved soon after. First to Palm Springs then to San Bernardino. Once Bob died, my husband became the scapegoat for the whole damn thing. Then, that was it. We split up. He moved into a geodesic dome he designed and built himself in Wonder Valley, you know just outside Joshua Tree.

Then he withdrew further and further until he ended up out where he is now. A truly godforsaken place. As what Lawrence Jr. The assemblage of structures the inventor lived in was strikingly reminiscent of his great workplace innovation. The stacks of worn shipping containers were set in ordered squares, two high and open to one side and surrounded by another row of containers at ground level, like a wall. It felt like a cubicle fortress.

We parked near one opening and when we got out of the pickup we could smell burning wood immediately. The overall impression he gave was slight and nebbish, moving in agitated motions and speaking with an air of forced calm, inhaling the mesquite scented air as if it charged him with serenity. He wore a tattered sweater vest and horn-rimmed glasses.