My solution is that I often wear Shooting Earmuffs (you guys who listen to music all the time, i don't get it, i can't do that) to lower my awareness of all the chatter... even when I do have an office.
Fortunately folks around me are understanding.
The problem is a genuine need for actual privacy and isolation in order to engage states of flow required for depth of technical knowledge work.
There’s no way to avoid it: all knowledge workers even in dense urban areas need to be afforded a reasonable private office with a door that shuts, and it should be viewed as a basic tool necessity like a keyboard or monitor. Just part of the cost of doing business.
You also need to limit things like visual things, potential interruptions, etc.
I actually used the "mother's room" at a place I worked for that from time to time. Good lighting, quiet, comfortable, PRIVATE. Granted I made sure nobody needed it, but it was a small office so I was reasonably sure that there would be no conflicts.
The secret is that I am a non-native English speaker working in the US. I can understand and speak very well... when I am focused on it. If I am not consciously making an effort to understand the chat in the room, it is almost like white noise.
English is a bit harder since I am much better at it and subconsciousness catches up. Never worked in open space in my native language so no clue, probably the hardest.
Heh, I also feel the same, as a non-hungarian working in Budapest, and what's funny is that historically Hungarian was (is?) used by movies as the "white noise background language" by some directors.
Basically, it's just background noise to drown out other people. I don't listen to the music I really like when I'm working, I listen to quiet stuff that won't distract me; rather than what I most enjoy and on which I would want to focus.
But songs with words or that go too fast for my liking, can't do it.
Part of it is probably that I tend to listen to music with actual lyrics instead of catchy pop songs. It's just a big long story that you've heard a thousand times. Comforting, but also easy to ignore.
I have seen (interviewed at) a company, not a startup, that had two feet deep work surfaces, basically enough to put up a monitor, and chairs about three feet apart. Not really even space to open a notebook on the surface without bothering your neighbor.
While working, I can't listen to music that has any lyrics in it whatsoever, otherwise my mind is listening to the words instead of focusing on the work.
So, electronic music. I used to love being immersed in code while listening to house and progressive except that in the last decade or so most of the new stuff has shifted closer to mainstream pop in that most tracks now have divas or bros in the foreground. Blegh.
Anyway, clearly we're all wired differently because lots of the people I work with (and have worked with) can focus just fine while listening to lyric-laden pop, alternative, metal, whatever. It's interesting.
The benefit is that every once in a while there WILL be a song with lyrics, and that's my indicator that I should take a quick break.