An open-plan office designed to encourage spontaneous collaboration has achieved total visibility and complete silence, eleven months after removing its walls.

Colleagues seated four feet apart now communicate exclusively in writing.

“I can see him typing the message,” said employee Dorian Faulks. “I can hear him typing the message. Then the message arrives, and it begins with ‘hey — quick one.’”

The Institute for Proximate Distance reports that removing barriers does not increase conversation but relocates it.

“Speech in an open plan is public,” said Institute researcher Dr. Ingeborg Malle. “Nobody wants their half-formed question witnessed by fourteen people, so the question becomes a document.”

The office has since reintroduced structure in the form of headphones, which staff use to signal unavailability, and which are frequently worn playing nothing at all.

Management has responded by adding four soundproof booths for private calls. All four are permanently occupied by people who are not on calls.

A proposal to install partitions between desks is under review. Objectors say it would undermine the culture of openness. They have submitted this objection in writing.