Having written so much in REST and on this blog about the creative power of walks, I was struck by this detail in Julia Love’s Reuters article about how “Apple seeks design perfection at new ‘spaceship’ campus:”

One of the most vexing features was the doorways, which Apple wanted to be perfectly flat, with no threshold. The construction team pushed back, but Apple held firm.

The rationale? If engineers had to adjust their gait while entering the building, they risked distraction from their work, according to a former construction manager.

Now, it IS the case that when you’re walking, you think best when you walk at your own pace, and don’t think as well when you’re walking much faster or slower than normal. But the claim that a threshold would constitute a big distraction? I’m skeptical. At the very least, I’d like to know what else in the building is designed to reduce distraction.