The modern open office was designed for team building and camaraderie but is mostly distinguished by its high noise levels, lack of privacy and surfeit of both digital and human distractions.

Anyway, this past fall TIME and I moved to a snazzy new snack-filled, nonoffice office setting. Coincidentally, my daughter moved into an open-plan bedroom/bathroom, otherwise known as a college dorm.

This was the era of the open-plan office, lauded for its flexibility and adaptability—it facilitated the modern way of working, at the time.

Open-plan offices have become ubiquitous in modern work environments, yet they present significant challenges in terms of acoustic comfort and cognitive performance. Recent studies have ...