A basic principle of ancient Chinese Feng Shui is that you should not sit with your back to a space. In other words, you need to have your back against a wall, not your face facing a wall. I believe there is a reason for this. When there is a space behind you, human instinct forces you to pay a subconscious attention on that space (we are very alert to danger from behind), making it harder to concentrate on what is in front of you.

What about having a window on the wall you're facing, so you can look out it?

It's to stop the eunuchs from murdering you.

It's cheating, somewhat, to replace your desk with once that is as wide as two desks. I'm trying to figure out a way to do something similar with only one desk's worth of space.

Wow this guy has the 606 Vitsoe Universal shelving [1] and USM Haller desk [2]

A dream setup.

[1] https://www.vitsoe.com/us/606

[2] https://us.usm.com/collections/tables-desks

The Vitsoe shelving is the goal for my office, but the initial cost is just so high. I know it will last me the rest of my life, and I should just have bought it when I first wanted it 15 years ago.

The chairs in front of the desk might be a pair of Vitsoe 620 Chair Programme.

Very aesthetic, the author must be a photographer, these photos could fit very well on r/malelivingspace.

He’s a software engineer with taste. I know taste is subjective but I happen to like he’s taste.

Ehh, I find it difficult to distinguish between "taste" and "money". The shelving alone is a "contact us for pricing" situation. Premium items coupled with a too-clean-to-be-used work environment and natural light can do a significant lift in the "taste" department.

Having just moved house, this is fantastic inspiration.

To be fair, the huge window by the desk in the article makes it a naturally more appealing space than my own. But it’s enough to make me rethink the layout we have here so far. Especially since we want space for non digital projects too.

I also just moved to a new house, and am very happy this showed up. I'm trying to do a complete furniture refresh for my office, declutter, and reorganize.

I'm lucky enough that there is a large window in the room, and I also only use one monitor. While I think my room is not as large as his, I can still make it work.

The one thing that was stopping me was cable management - but with clever furniture placement, I think the cables can mostly be hidden.

The non digital side makes total sense and I would love to mimic this

I do the same thing but with two physical desks, not just partitioning one desk into two logical desks.

Aside from the obvious advantage of more space it really helps put your mind in a different context when you are at a different location. In his example just moving over slightly would do nothing for me with the computer just arms length away and still in full view.

You have one monitor yes, but what about second monitor?

When you have two monitors, is your head always turned to one side? That always hurts my neck, so I wind up with the second monitor relegated to the side, where I never actually look at it.

This is why ultrawides are very comfortable, you can focus on the center region where 2x monitors likely have their edges meeting.

I do this too, and just put less-important stuff on the second monitor. Work chat, music, logs, whatever.

I have a rotating chair (normal desk chair) and I rotate the whole chair to look at the other screen If I need to look at it for more than one second.

I saved my desk from curb side collection. My chair idem. My laptop battery died two years ago so my desk cannot be too far away from a wall socket.

Maybe one day I could face my desk away from a wall.

Tolomeo detected.

Michele De Lucchi & Giancarlo Fassina (1987)

Initially thought one desk was facing the room, the other desk would be behind facing the wall (where there is bookshelf space instead I guess)

I have considered that as a dual setup (a desk towards room and a desk behind you up against wall)

I mean I love this kind of stuff but honestly the answer here is "have a huge honking office." I have a digital/reading split and there's actually a technical term for it: a mess.

What I like to do is think of the office less as a discrete space and more like a colonial, expansionist government - if I have sat in a chair for any amount of time, anything in a five-foot radius starts accruing stacks of books, paper pads, that kind of thing. My wife loves this! Sometimes it gets cold in a room and I leave it for a while and when I return months later it's like discovering an office from the past

What is the lamp, the one that‘s like a paper globe?

That was everywhere in my childhood.

Not necessarily that specific lamp, but GULLSUDARE from IKEA is the same kind.

Japanese lantern

This does not look like the work space of someone who does serious work.

It's not mentioned in the article but one thing I constantly struggle with when laying out my office is facing the desk toward the wall (like he originally had it) vs. facing toward the room (the "digital" side of his desk now). I don't like facing the wall but I find when I face the room the monitor totally blocks my view and it kind of looks like ass from the other side. This guy did way better cable management than I have done but still, you're looking at the back side of a monitor like a huge 2001 style monolith, especially if your monitor is black.

I still don't have a good solution for this, and curious what others are doing.

I place mine against the wall. It is most convenient this way because the Ethernet and power outlets are against the wall. In addition it means that the remainder of the space is large enough to be used for other things. My wife and I sit in the same room with a table with the 3D printer, home servers, and our various shared workbench tasks in between us. I sit by the window because I like sunlight and looking over the city, and while my wife does too my mood is more mercurially related to it than is hers.

Overall, power and data management dominate this entire arrangement. I have far too many devices each of which draw very little power but demand their own massive power connections. In the end, I will likely just rack most of them to make room for the second child we plan to have.

A few scattered thoughts but a board with decoration or art of a similar size could be a nice cover, the other (more building required) would be to look if there’s a way you can fold down/away the monitor when not in use.

Walking into my office, you definitely see the backside of my dual monitor + audio interfaces + studio monitor speakers (I dabble in music production as well as tech) from the doorway.

I just live with it. I'm on the good side. The few times a day my wife needs to talk to me she just comes around to my side of the desk anyways.

Adding another desk isn't "rethinking the desk". It's adding another desk with a slightly different purpose to the first desk. It's maximalism under the guise of insight.

Will there be a follow-up when that Ikea tissue-paper lamp catches fire and burns his flat down?

I don't know how those things are legal, like building a computer case out of recycled newspaper clippings.

Those where everywhere in the late 80s, complete with 80W incandescent light bulbs. I'm not suggestion that it can't catch fire, but even if it did wouldn't the paper would burn so fast that not enough heat is generated to ignite anything else?

Betcha there’s an LED in there creating less waste heat than the sunlight hitting it during the day.

Would you like to buy a fire insurance policy against the specific casualty of that lamp igniting from its light source and burning OP’s flat down? I’ll sell you one for a great price.

I don't know when's the last time you handled an Edison base LED bulb but they get really goddamn hot at the base where they cram all the improperly-cooled electronics into an area the size of a thumbnail.

You're literally arguing that rice paper is an acceptable material for electrical safety.

Frayed cord, damaged/defective socket, the list of potential ignition sources goes on but hey let's wrap it all in dry grass and kindling.

Looks like this is the product: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/gullsudare-pendant-lamp-shade-w...

They pair it with a 2.8W bulb: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/solhetta-led-bulb-e26-450-lumen...

Less than an ancient phone charger. OP’s flat will be fine.

No one is lighting a room with a 2.8W LED (equivalent to a 25W incandescent). That is barely enough light for a focused desk lamp.

40W equivalent, if you read the link.

And in OP’s pictures, I totally believe that’s the bulb they’re using. Notice they have a desk lamp for up close work, and a freaking enormous window to let in sunlight. No need to flood the space with light with the hanging pendant thing.