Corner desks vs straight desks [closed]

Question

The company I work for are currently undergoing a site wide renovation and I'm involved in the 'consultation' on what the R&D work spaces are going to be like.

There is no scope for individual private offices - so lets not start on that topic.

One big requirement is that the office layout can be flexible (i.e. team areas can be created and changed as necessary).

In order to allow this one of the most significant changes is that we will be losing our corner facing desks. The rationale being that since no one has big CRT monitors any more we don't need to waste the space in the corner.

People are reluctant about this change but I'm not sure if thats just because people don't like change or if there is a real reason behind it. I've moved my setup out of the corner onto a straight edge to see how much impact it has on myself.

We've also been told that this is now happening across the industry... that people are being moved out of their corners into more bench-like arrangement.

So my the question is twofold:

1. Is it really important to have a corner?
2. Is there really an industry-wide move 'out of the corners'?

I know there are a lot of questions already on here about conditions for developers but nothing about this specific question I don't think.

Answer 1

Straight desks for pair programming will work great with this type of chair:
http://www.cenqua.com/pairon/

Answer 2

If you're gonna be doing any pair-programming then I would recommend you avoid corner desks as they hamper the ability for 2 people to work side by side.

What about curved desks? A team of four with curved desks (curving away from you, not around you) would form a circular formation ideal for group discussions and pair programming.