Experts say that when offices reopen, group work areas might replace the 'seas and seas' of single desks, while workers stay home for individual tasks. Here's what the 'new' open office could be like.

A startup's office in San Francisco in 2019.Katie Canales/Business Insider

• With thousands of white-collar employees having adapted to working from home due to coronavirus-driven shutdowns, many have posited that the office environment may not have a place in the future.
• And some have said the open office — a densified floor plan characterized by work stations cut out of large, open spaces — is dead, as employers are forced to prioritize physical distancing when offices eventually reopen and welcome returning workers.
• But some experts say both the office and the popular open floor plan will still have a place in the post-coronavirus future.
• "The seas and seas" of single desks will give way to a greater focus on group work areas as experts suggest that the future of the office could be for collaboration, with individual tasks delegated to the home office.
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When people eventually go back to the office, it won't be the same as before the COVID-19 pandemic toppled global operations.

You might be a part of an office cohort with a few handfuls of your coworkers. In case of a confirmed case, it would make tracing points of contact and containing an outbreak much easier. You may only go into the office on days when you have group work, with individual tasks completed at home. Hallways may be one-directional.

Experts say that businesses are focusing on how to optimize existing office space for physical distancing. For many companies in Silicon Valley, that means taking offices arranged in the ubiquitous open floor plan and adapting it.

The open workplace environment, if done correctly, was built to support different types of work: single workstations, one-person cubbies for individual work, seating areas for collaboration, and so forth, Studio O+A cofounder and principal Primo Orpilla told Business Insider. But moving forward, there may be less of a focus on spaces designated for heads-down individual tasks as experts rethink how to use the office.

That doesn't mean the open office setup is dead, San Francisco Bay Area design firms told Business Insider. Instead, the densified arrangement will simply adapt to a new era where physical space is crucial in preventing an infectious disease from transmitting.

Here's how the open office could evolve as people start going back to work.