For many people, a home office is no longer optional.
If you spend six or seven hours a day in a room, that room deserves more design attention than a formal dining room used six times a year.
The office should match your stage of life.
Maybe you meet clients and need a separate entrance. Maybe two people work from home and share back-to-back desks. Maybe it is just you, a desk, multiple monitors, television, printer, and a couch.
Location matters.
It should be convenient without sitting directly in the family’s traffic flow or beside noisy children’s rooms.
Near the front entrance can work very well because visitors can reach the office and a nearby bathroom without entering the private house.
A separate entrance is excellent when clients or employees visit regularly.
I generally would not make the office accessible only through the primary bedroom because work then invades the sleeping zone and other people cannot reach it privately.
Give the office a decent view and good natural light, but consider monitor glare.
Plan technology before construction: outlets, Ethernet, displays, printer, equipment, cooling, lighting, and perhaps a small network closet.
Then think about flex rooms.
Instead of separate gym, theater, game room, hobby room, and playroom, maybe one flexible room performs several jobs.
Flexible square footage is often more valuable than specialized square footage that sits empty most of the week.
The office should support work. The flex room should support change.