# Architecture matters for creativity Maybe it’s just a just a weird pattern or a framing device, but the effect of architecture on outlier institutions comes up over and over again. Observers have noted that the Pixar office[^1], Bell Labs[^2], and the (old) DARPA office were all set up (by design or accident) so that you were constantly running into people. Physical [[Designed Serendipity]]. These serendipitous meetings led to more [[Idea sex]]. In [[How Buildings Learn]], [[Stewart Brand]] calls out how MIT building 22 (and many other high-performing institutional-places) were incredibly reconfigurable. It turns out that Bell Labs was as well. [[Lockheed Skunkworks]] was literally in a reconfigured corner of a building and a reconfigured Bourbon plant. This reconfigurability enables people to do things that weren’t necessarily imagined when the building was created. Hand-wavingly the ability to easily remake your local environment encourages a more expansive mindset around remaking the world. [[Environment shapes our thoughts]]. Going one step further, the trope of “starting in a garage” might actually be a specific subset of “reconfigurable architecture.” Garages are one of the most configurable spaces in a house - it’s basically a big box with a concrete floor with no expectations on cleanliness where you can get large things in/out easily and it’s completely legitimate to mount things on the walls or ceiling. Warehouses are basically big garages - my hunch is that there’s something slightly magical to working in a reconfigured warehouse. Architecture can also have negative effects on creativity. It’s become clear over time that open-office plans are detrimental to the ability to do deep work. So there’s some balance between running into people regularly and *all the time*. There is a *feeling* of being around other people that doesn’t happen when you are not physically around other people. Physically being around other people being productive subconsciously encourages productivity. Of course, all of these anecdotal patterns may just be spurious noise to which we’ve attached a narrative. I have a lot of trouble believing that based on my own experience. ### Related * [[Where do ideas come from?]] * [[Third spaces are physical Schelling Points]] * [[The ability to say ‘huh that’s funny’ is important for discovering new phenomena]] [1]:[[Creativity Inc.]] [2]:[[gertnerIdeaFactoryBell2012]] [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Architecture+matters+for+creativity) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Architecture+matters+for+creativity)