One place I worked was so overcrowded and loud that everybody on my team was wearing headphones all day long, just to preserve their sanity.

The level of noise and the fact everybody wore headphones to overcome it meant that often the best way to chat with the person sitting within a metre of your desk was by text over signal / google messenger, etc.

That’s the purpose of meetings and meeting rooms.

We had meetings and meeting rooms, but we only went there for required meetings.

I think the kinds of things they were trying to make happen were those informal discussions you sometimes get. That was part of the purpose of having pool tables, ping pong, break rooms with snacks, etc. It was a place where people could bump into each-other without an agenda and talk about what they were interested in without sticking to an agenda.

But, they didn't seem to realize that the physical space was much less than half the requirement. The other half is that people feel happy, safe, energized, confident, relaxed, optimistic, etc. If you're stressed out all day because your workspace is way too crowded and lacks privacy, you're not going to want to do that. If you're worried you're going to be hit in the next round of layoffs, you're not going to want to do that. If you're getting stack ranked against your teammates and put in the lower half of the stack, you're not going to have the confidence to bring up your ideas.