I was also thinking about the question over my working career. My best work has been done in a closed office shared with 1 or 2 other people also working on the same project. I worked at home for 2 years and while I had great spurts of productivity when the task was well defined, getting questions answered or bouncing ideas off others hurt some types of work.

Cubes never did work well for me because they rarely get any natural light. I'm a sun driven person and try my best to insist on a window in my office.