I went to McDonnell Aircraft to pick up a new aircraft for my squadron. A good friend who was working in engineering showed me his work area.
It was in a large room the size of two basketball courts chockablock with narrow aisles and desks shoulder to shoulder in rows.
The theory was to put the engineers close enough together that they could take a few steps and communicate with the all the other engineers in their work group, or take a few more steps and communicate with adjacent work groups as necessary.
This was how the F-4 and F-15 were designed in the days before CAD.
When I was an undergraduate we had a guest lecture by very senior design engineer who referred to this "everyone together" approach - apparently it was considered to be the best way of ensuring ease of communications. I subsequently worked at a few places where they adopted this approach - large open plan areas, people sitting close to each other. The idea was that you should be able to talk to your immediate team without having to walk out of one office and into another. I was subsequently worked for a firm where seniority came with its own office. I declined the office, and insisted on sitting in the open plan area with my team. Seemed to work well, and some of the other groups commented that they wished their managers were more integrated with their teams.
My current employer places people in different locations - the CAD design draftsmen are in a different building to the senior engineers managing the design, and the junior engineering was outsourced to another country. To say that communications and teamwork have suffered would be an understatement.