That's an interesting piece and it's made me think a bit. One potential drawback: People historically never respect shared space as much as they do personal space. Regardless of the general maturity level, damage/uncleanliness of shared space is always going to be higher than in dedicated personal space. Part of this is because just one or two messy people will gradually mess the whole area, instead of being contained to their own area.

But being more flexible on office setup, and minimizing empty desks when costs are tough - really fascinating stuff. I'm going to roll this around in my mind more a bit later.