The cubicle wasn’t designed to make you miserable

The cubicle gets a pretty bad rap. The boxy workspace has become almost synonymous with isolation and corporate drudgery. But that’s not what its creator Robert Probst intended when he launched his innovative “Action Office” design in 1964.Current State speaks with Mark Schurman, director of corporate communications for Herman Miller, the Michigan company that originated the design, about the evolution of the cubicle. He says that while it’s hard to imagine offices without cubicles, workspaces in the early 20th century were the opposite of isolating.