We decided to move when we realized that our dev room was too cramped, and people were being forced to work in conference rooms, the hallway or out of the office. We colocate our team precisely to avoid situations where people aren't in the same room, and our old space was actively hindering that. So, we decided to seek out something a bit more spacious. Here is our new dev room….
Everybody loves the new space, precisely because we have enough room to spread out but stay together. And, you can't see it very well, but if you look over Rob's shoulder in this next picture, you can see the kitchen behind the dev room, with the conference room to the right. The conference room is big, located at the far end of the space from the dev room, and easily closed off, which means we can have meetings and still have all the chaos of our dev room going at the same time.
The other major benefit of the new space is light; sweet, sweet sunlight. Every window in the space is enormous, and they all open. To the outside. In this picture, you can also see two doors on the right, leading to the library and the phone room. The new space is a great mix of public and private space that suits us down to the bone.
On top of all this, the space is in the heart of downtown Durham, meaning we have tons of restaurants and shops in walking distance. I just found out yesterday that there's a skateboard shop across the street. We've been walking to lunch every day, and all around enjoying being out of the suburbs.
Special thanks to Jess Martin for taking these photos.