How egos, taxes, and the inventor of the vertical timber harvester helped cubicles become an iconic piece of corporate life.
Over 50 years since its creation, the cubicle is often dismissed as a symbol of corporate culture’s clash with worker happiness. Oddly enough, its “invention” was largely by accident.
In pop culture, Dilbert and movies like Office Space (1997) taught us to loathe cubicles and to covet red Swingline 747 Series Business staplers. Cubes were grey, felt-lined fortresses that just screamed, “Is it 5 o’clock yet?”
If you’re one of the many folks who grew up hating the idea of cube life, you’re in good company. Their inventor agrees with you.
“The cubiclizing of people in modern corporations is monolithic insanity “
— Robert Propst, inventor of the cubicle, age 76
The Cubefather
The lumber, medical, and farm industries had a friend in Robert Propst. Over the course of his career, Propst racked up over 120 patents for everything from timber harvesters to heart valves. He also invented a livestock tagging machine, during what we can only assume was his more “rural” phase.
It was the start of the 1960’s, and Robert Propst had just joined a growing furniture company in Michigan. Herman Miller had come to specialize in office design in the past decade, and Propst joined a new division focused on research. He arrived at the start of a new frontier for Herman Miller — this was the first time they set out to solve furniture usage problems.
They started with a look at how offices had changed over the 20th century. Propst recognized the types of work had changed, but office environment hadn’t kept up. People shared and processed more information than ever, yet sat in large, open rooms with little privacy or noise control. It was hard to communicate and harder to focus.
“One of the regrettable conditions of present day offices is the tendency to provide a formula kind of sameness for everyone.” — Propst on 20th century offices
A couple years later in 1964, they premiered the result, called Action Office. Little did Probst know, it would plant the seeds for exactly the type of office environment he’d later come to regret.
The Action Office
Propst focused his studies on how people worked, how information traveled, and the impact various office layouts had on productivity. He spoke with many psychologists, mathematicians, and anthropologists. After all, a study without the academically gifted, is no study at all.
The findings, roughly speaking:
- People sit all day, and that isn’t healthy.
- Most people need places for both private and collaborative work.
Through a lot of the hard work that came next, the Action Office was born.
Despite its age, the Action Office still sounds remarkably like the ingredients of a “modern” workplace.
- Flexible ingredients, with ability rearrange based on office needs.
- Height adjustable, sit-to-stand desks (health through better blood flow).
- Dedicated areas for focus, with ability to still see surroundings.
The academic parts in the office design industry celebrated the first version for flexibility and a “more productive way of work”. Sales numbers, unfortunately, didn’t reflect that enthusiasm equally.
While adaptability of the Action Office sounded like an ideal work environment, high-end fabric finishes and design drove up the cost of furniture. The larger footprint and difficult assembly further pushed Action Office into a “hard sell” category for the coveted large corporate customer.
Undeterred, Probst took the feedback in stride and used it as the foundation for the next major (and ultimately successful) incarnation of Action Office.
This time around, Propst focused on the giving workers an enclave they could call their own. Something with two, maybe three walls. Something that would allow people to claim and personalize their territory, without feeling isolated from office activity.
Action Office II premiered, and in a rare move even by today’s standards, the sequel surpassed the original.