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W O R K H O U S E Vo l u m e 2 : R i s e o f a N e w B u i l d i n g Ty p e
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Table of Contents Foreword
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Micro-vacancy
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Co-working in Search of Community
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The Architecture of WeWork
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Access & Publics
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Co-working as an Urban Overlay
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Credits
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Foreword
This academic report is meant to be a tool of inspiration and has no commercial value. Thank you in advance to the entities and photographers for allowing us to reproduce your images.
This collection presents snapshots of phenomena surrounding the ways we live, work, and communicate through the examination of the architecture, business models, and operations of co-working spaces. With technological advancements and changes in labor practices, the workplace was liberated from the domestic realm, causing a spatial, programmatic, and ideological schism. This strict delineation of office and house became a key concept of modernization that motivated architecture and urban design practices. Currently, there is a paradigm shift that reunites these two environments, creating a gray zone between the spaces occupied by domesticity and work. Daily activities are surpassing the structures that contain them, becoming more dynamic, interconnected, and seamless than ever before. Emerging co-working spaces are understood as catalysts stimulating new programmatic relationships with a building type that has yet to be determined. Architecture must now engage with rapidly transforming lifestyles, technologies, and economies in order to produce new value in contemporary society. These essays demonstrate our understanding of these contemporary phenomena, provoking thought of its broader implications for design.
Hitoshi Abe Professor, Dept. of Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA Director, xLAB Research Group, UCLA Chair for Contemporary Japan Study, Terasaki Center, UCLA
Micro-vacancy Eric Lin and Sally Chae
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Micro-vacancy Eric Lin and Sally Chae
In the age of the sharing economy, micro-vacancies produce a generative opportunity for co-working and suggest a new time-cycle oriented approach for architects when designing physical spaces. A micro-vacancy refers to the time over which spaces, services or talents lay idle within an existing and operating physical/commercial entity. These unused values could generate productive opportunities, just as Airbnb, Uber, and TaskRabbit have captured with idle space, service and talent, respectively. Acting upon these micro-vacancies is fundamentally changing the way physical spaces are being used. By reoccupying and reactivating the fluctuating micro-vacancies in existing spaces, the act of co-working infiltrates traditionally fixed programs to further dissolve the framework of typology. While building typology refers to the conventional and stable relationship between architectural form and program, micro-vacancies introduce a fluctuating mix of programs which can only be spotted through periods in a time-cycle rather than through space assignments within the building form. Time reveals a new set of occupancy relationships for architects to design within, expanding the role of architect beyond physical and toward temporal and transitional approaches. The following case studies will span across the multiple time-cycles, from daily, quarterly fluctuations to the economic cycle, in order to demonstrate how architects and their designs respond to, integrate with, or even propel new forms of co-working 8
within micro-vacancies. On the smallest scale, we see micro-vacancies occupied by various “station boxes� popping up in airports and train stations that provide a private, temporary space to rest and work. Spacious is a co-working platform that spots and reactivates micro-vacancies within the daily off-hour periods of high-end dinner restaurants, with the use of minimal yet strategic design interventions. While such restaurants typically define the dining experience in a large city such as San Francisco or New York, their limited evening hours of operation presents a period of micro-vacancies from 9am to 5pm; leaving the restaurants’ main street locations and highly cultivated interiors wastefully idle. The day-time hours before dinner service happen to be an optimal period for co-working; with the designed restaurant
Spacious at The Milling Room. The interior is used as a co-working space during the daytime hours. Spacious, 2017 9
Spacious allows users to find locations with their app interface. Spacious, 2017 10
interiors as added design value to upend a co-working space. Therefore, Spacious eliminates the expense of long-term leases and build-outs otherwise required, while partnering restaurants gain additional revenue. The selection of partnering restaurants illustrates the type of infrastructure necessary to facilitate this temporal transformation. Furniture selection of tables and chairs need to be suitable for both dining and co-working. Interior lighting or daylighting into the dining space would be required for a functional work environment. Electrical systems such as power outlet layouts and data infrastructure such as wi-fi ports, would need to be designed or easily adjusted to accommodate office work. In addition to these embedded functionalities, restaurant interiors can shift into co-working operations with the use of physical signifiers such as portable signages, mobile kiosks, and coffee dispensers. Spacious exhibits a case that is able to reactivate micro-vacancies with minimal intervention by spotting opportunities embedded in the existing architectural infrastructure. Here, an existing program is left unhindered, but temporarily transformed and alternatively utilized through slight shifts to the environment and key timing in when it can operate. The economic adaptability of existing resources and energy across changing patterns of use become apparent as emerging operands for architectural design in the future.
Spacious micro-vacancies in use. Spacious, 2017 11
100 BANCH is a co-working space for startup companies in Shibuya, Tokyo that anticipates and integrates a shifting micro-vacancy environment through its adaptable interior design elements. The limited number of tenants that occupies the building at 3-month intervals continually re-invents the co-working space. Thus, the space must accommodate a constant cycle of shifting needs and activities at a quarterly time cycle. The architect of 100 BANCH, Jo Nagasaka, addresses this constraint with flexible interior moments, evidently extending the role of the architect in spatial organization that is conscious of functional adaptability. The second-floor work space “GARAGE� is a creative open space for tenants. The reachable ceiling height and the gridded, blanketed ceiling outlets are designed to introduce 12
100 BANCH 2F Plan by architect Jo Nagasaka.
the necessary tools for spatial reconfigurations. Furthermore, the duplex lamp socket is a removable ceiling-mounted lighting and power supply socket that can be easily attached and detached by hand so users can arrange their work space. The freedom of reconfiguration is expanded using height-adjustable mobile tables and detachable table-tops that can be hung from the ceiling as whiteboards. The highly interactive space in 100 BANCH embodies a milieu of spatial and elemental qualities that are designed to anticipate shifting patterns of use. The space becomes a highly reconfigurable environment for different working conditions and activities. The role of the architect becomes evidently focused on controlling how interior objects will actively perform and transform an architectural space. 13
100 BANCH Garage. The duplex lamp sockets are located at reachable height and are easy to mount and detach lighting and power supply. Authors, 2018
In addition to architectural design, a micro-vacancy could also be a powerful opportunity within an economic cycle. Office Depot, for example, responds to downward trends in office supply commerce and physical retail locations by allocating a portion of their stores to co-working uses. Big box retailers like Office Depot are experiencing a recession due to the rise of e-commerce, leaving large portions of the physical store idle. They developed the residual spaces into co-working hot-desks and offices in order to gain an additional revenue stream and to maintain their hold of the massive property resource. For the co-working user, this location provides the unique condition of proximity to office supplies, printing, packaging, shipping, and tech support that Office Depot already provides. In the end, the relationship between co-working and retail becomes symbiotic, cutting down on the cost to provide these services and supplies in a normal co-working space while also providing a built-in network of customers for the supplies, shipping, and printing. At this scale, architects aren’t merely designing a transitional interior space, but transforming and evolving a business to meet contemporary needs and markets by developing business 14
strategies that address its own vacancy. The coordination of physical and economic circumstances becomes an added mode of architectural intervention through the strategic adaptation of micro-vacancies. Micro-vacancies become opportunities for co-working to inhabit spaces at variant or non-conventional scales of an operable time-cycle. Whether availability is spotted within hours of a day, or within the span of an economic dow turn, micro-vacancies serve as a discernible starting point for architectural design. Under this process, architectural designers no longer work on buildings or even set programs. The designer becomes a scout of micro-vacancies and choreographer of constantly mutating programs. Current case studies pointed to physical signifiers (furniture, environmental quality, etc.) and building infrastructures (data and electrical system, etc.) as the place where architects authored the fluctuation of space at various time-cycles. We suspect this paradigm shift to a time-oriented approach would lead to an even broader restructuring of how buildings are designed in the future. Strategically comprehensive mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems would be required for the constant rezoning of occupancy. Mobile and multifunctional architectural objects would be introduced to reliably activate the different uses. Lightweight yet durable materials can embody and withstand multiple purposes. Regenerative designs would allow for an economic adaptability of resource and energy across changing patterns of use. More robust circulation systems would be required to accommodate the various behaviors and movement. Finally, flexible partitions between spaces would be conditioned to absorb the ebb and flow of various activities. These dynamic conditions will constitute the role of architects within the time-based economy.
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Co-working in Search of Community Kristen Fong and Lingxi Gu
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Co-working in Search of Community Kristen Fong and Lingxi Gu
A community is a group of individuals linked by shared experiences, whose relationships are reinforced by a common goal or value. Today, with the advancement and proliferation of mobile technology and social media, the internet has allowed the formation of countless types of communities, expanding beyond physical proximity or familial ties. This has led to a virtually unlimited network connecting people of all backgrounds who seek a sense of identity and belonging. For co-working spaces, many aspire to be something beyond a shared place for professionals of different expertise to work together—they have a desire to create a community. However, the word community has been so overused that its meaning has been lost. It is usually no more than a buzzword to attract workers with empty claims. In its early days, WeWork’s tagline was ‘a physical social network’, which hasn’t amounted to much beyond chatting with another WeWorker at the open kitchen over some citrus-infused water. They even have a separate division of community managers whose role is to provide oversight for their designated location and to help WeWork employees expand their network. However, they are not much more than the ‘face’ of each location to its members. A false sense of community is produced in co-working offices. In order to develop a community, there needs to be a greater social need or exchange of knowledge between people. Community isn’t a commodity that can be bought or sold through a membership. Real communal bonds are the strongest when people unite in times of need from something as urgent as a catastrophic 18
event or to something basic like childcare or healthcare. Since co-working is based on bringing different people together, it also has the potential to connect people with a common identity or need beyond work and economic profit. It provides a physical space for a community, and this becomes the bridge for social interaction. To create this communal bond, there needs to be social capital, the benefits produced from functioning social relationships. Co-workers need to give back and contribute to their community; they need to share their values and expertise with others. In Japan, UDS Inbound League revolves around exchanging Japanese culture with international ones. They set up a cafelike workspace on the entry level with hopes to attract travelers to get a cup of coffee, peruse through some travel brochures, and ideally decide to get a membership to work there regularly. In addition to traditional co-working spaces, Inbound League uniquely provides a short-term global residence program for up to six different nationalities. These members can share an apartment on the residence floor reminiscent of university
(Fig. 1) UDS Residence’s communal lounge and kitchen. UDS, 2018 19
dormitories for international students (Fig. 1). In exchange for housing, these global residents have the opportunity to be hired by the Japanese companies who have offices there. Their residents are asked not only to participate in job-matching and product development workshops for foreign nationals, but also to organize cultural events to teach locals about their home countries (Fig. 2). Here is an exchange of social values and economic expertise, which are needed to build a community. UDS has also taken the approach to directly analyze different cultural norms, by creating a catalog of how different countries greet or welcome each other. Inbound League’s focus on cultural exchange has the potential to take it beyond just a co-working space, nurturing a sense of community. The exchange of knowledge and broadening of relationships in co-working communities creates social capital. Social capital has three key elements: social networks, trust and reciprocity, and shared norms and values. In other words, the collective value of trust between the people we know leads us to help and to support each other. In the workplace this can lead to
(Fig. 2) Cultural exchange: Inbound League members learn about and play the traditional game of Tosenkyo, also known as Japanese Darts. UDS, 2018 20
gains in efficiency, market share, and performance. While these are all positives, they are solely economically driven. It’s the non-profitable informal network rallying for a cause that creates community. This is the realm where online communities thrive. Online networking has resulted in an increased ability for individuals to find others in the world who also share aspects of their identity. Social media has allowed people with various types of needs or of any identity or interests to find, engage with, and form communities. Since co-working is the physical manifestation of this as a more open social workplace, it is the ideal platform for a community to develop. If a co-working space also facilitates a common identity, knowledge exchange, and promotes giving back, then a strong communal bond can allow its members to progress regardless of what type of work is happening. When considering a social need in the workplace that could be addressed, there is a strong movement for gender equality. In the case of The Riveter, the founders sought to create a space run by women for women’s needs, but is open to all genders. The founders attempt to fulfill a social need that is otherwise lacking in the current work environment. Their sense of empowering the female entrepreneur is heavily reliant on their events and professional development programming. Almost every day of the week there is an event ranging from member-led yoga classes to inviting successful businesswomen or authors to give talks and lead workshops. While they are very active on Instagram, there is also The Riveter app, their own exclusive social networking tool for members intended to “build community and make connections” mainly through a plethora of events. However, when it comes to designing spaces specific to women’s needs, there is a shortcoming. The Riveter’s founders have acknowledged there is a great need for childcare services and amenities for working mothers. Their answer to this is the “Mother’s Room” for new moms to nurse their newborns, which is advertised as a unique 21
“Mother’s Room” at The Riveter’s West LA Location. Authors, 2018
amenity along with other more standard co-working services. This is a great idea, but the resulting spaces are disappointing. A former closet or a quickly built 4-walled cubicle placed in the corner of an open workspace with intermittent electricity are hardly suitable (Fig. 3). Children are also not allowed in the space and daycare services are not offered. The Riveter claims to be a women-oriented community, but lacks support for the working mothers they want to enable to succeed. Quilt has another take on the female workplace by taking women out of traditional office spaces and instead hosting short-term work hours in the comfort and security of someone’s home. Its co-founders believe the privacy of home will lead to longer lasting professional connections. Gathering in someone’s home is a more casual setting, which facilitates the trust-building needed to create social capital. Since Quilt’s gatherings are hosted by 22
Sample of events offered by Quilt. 2019
members, the company itself takes a back seat, allowing the members to take the lead. This kind of opportunity to lead in co-working is key to creating communities since it empowers its members. Quilt acknowledges how people—in this case women—actually interact. They meet online first after finding a topic which interests them, and then meet offline, at a host’s home, much like how friends would hang out. Accountability is built into this with personal goal-setting during each session and members tend to go to gatherings with women they have already met through the app. This is less about work and more about making connections. A group of friends with similar passions and creative backgrounds is the foundation of Sugarhouse Studios, a co-working space for artists, designers, and fabricators. The original group of friends formed Assemble Studio, who call themselves a 23
multidisciplinary collective. They created Sugarhouse to provide a space for themselves and other collaborators to work in. This essentially expands their network of friends since collaborators work in similar fields and projects. Their Bermondsey location is designed to have a diverse range of programs ranging from a regular office space to a metal-working shop among other studio types for its respective members. They are aware of the specialized equipment and spaces required for their members (Fig. 5). The specificity of the design is important in creating a sense of community since the space they use is an extension of and supports their work and identity. Projects have also been directly engaged with the local area through events, workshops and classes open to the public. Their social capital and knowledge exchange is not limited to its members, but reaches into the neighboring community. Perhaps it is important to note that of all the co-working spaces researched, Sugarhouse does not mention community in its description while almost every other one does. Community is not something to be advertised, it is something which happens naturally through shared resources and space. While co-working spaces are varied in their designs and members, all have a common goal of creating community. However, this hasn’t happened yet for the most part.The case studies previously discussed make various attempts to create community. The more successful were Quilt and Sugarhouse, where there is less focus on the professional side of work and more on the informal social connections made as a result of joint interests, resources, and space. In order for people to make these connections, some sort of need or common interest should be established, which could be work related or not. If it is work related, new business partnerships can be formed and professional expertise can be shared, which happens in Sugarhouse. If it is not, it should help members in another aspect of their life which supports them in a different way. Support or secondary services such as 24
(Fig. 4) A drawing of different workspaces provided in Sugarhouse Bermondsey. Assemble, 2016 25
daycare, mental and physical healthcare, catering, or cleaning and organization, should have equal value to work-related ones. The Riveter attempted but was unsuccessful in this. These support elements create the social capital which needs to exist for members to participate in non-monetary value exchange. A community works when everyone and all its components are taken care of. While some may thrive in a work hard -play hard mentality, for others, it may be more about balance. If co-working spaces can really understand their members and their needs beyond their profession, then a true community could form. Perhaps this understanding lies somewhere in how the digital social media world has affected how people now function in the physical workspace. Co-working is essentially the hybrid of these realms. It has the capability to surpass the superficiality of online communities and engender tangible and productive long term bonds of communal reciprocity. Right now co-working sells an illusory ideal of community; how do we then develop co-working into the framework which fosters community?
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The Architecture of WeWork
Hong Bae Yang, Michael Pickoff, Summer Liu
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The Architecture of WeWork Hong Bae Yang, Michael Pickoff and Summer Liu
WeWork, the global co-working office company is rapidly expanding (including a branding change to The We Company) with 400,000 members in 30 countries and opening two million square feet of office space every month. WeWork is a co-working juggernaut, and an understanding and critical assessment of their data-driven design methodology is an important aspect of any informed discourse on contemporary office architecture. WeWork’s methodical data collection has played a role in their business and design models since their acquisition of a BIM consultancy firm called Case in 2010. Today, data analytics plays a primary role in the company’s real estate deals, construction sequence, and design choices, and has allowed them to set their sights on near-term expansion of the company’s scope of services. The company’s unprecedented use of quantitative, data-driven design motivates an analysis of the qualitative architectural features that the company uses to market its “space as service” business model. The company is shifting the architectural focus from place as product towards analytical design as service. The history of WeWork’s implementation of innovative technology solutions started with the company’s first major acquisition of Case, a small software development firm focusing on virtual design, construction, BIM and information management consulting. Case was founded in May of 2008 by architects Federico Negro, David Fano and Steve Sanderson during the economic downturn. Prior to the Wework acquisition, Case primarily developed a series of Revit add-ons that could be customized to 30
a firm’s specific needs. They mostly amounted to simple scripts that helped automate a variety of otherwise tedious tasks, for labeling, documenting, and coordinating a project. WeWork acquired Case in the summer of 2015, and their work shifted towards 3D scanning and building information modeling (BIM) for producing digital representations of spaces, as well as customized software for internal process management. Case assisted WeWork’s designers with leveraging innovative and emerging technology. Today, David Fano leads a 160-person “physical products” team that includes a development group and a design and construction group that is a composed of architecture, interior design, engineering, construction, integration, logistics, and art and graphics teams. WeWork’s business model can be described in three interrelated phases: real estate acquisition, design and construction, and post-occupancy data analysis. As a real estate developer, WeWork employs algorithmic parameters to assess the viability of a prospective acquisition including the profiling of local
Layout of WeWork’s storefront assembly system within a point cloud model. WeWork, 2018 31
transportation options, nearby businesses, and demographics. Once a lease is signed, the physical space is 3D scanned for reality capture, transforming the architecture into point cloud data for use in an extremely high-resolution BIM model. This 3D model then serves as input data for proprietary procedural algorithms for WeWork’s “augmented space planning” for desk and partition layout, which includes the output of shop drawings for manufacture. When building begins, the construction layout is described to workers by BIM intelligent lasers, and the process is monitored remotely by WeWork’s designers using HD 360 degree cameras developed by Field Lens. Once the space is occupied, WeWork employs a multitude of strategies for assessing efficiency and gathering user data, including a neural net that collects information on its existing buildings’ layouts and meeting room usage, heat maps, key cards, mobile devices, interior beacons and environmental sensors. All of these technologies gather usage information which is analyzed and used an input parameter for future construction. The WeWork model has proven to be valid and effective, and indeed revolutionized the way millennials work. The company
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sees this as the perfect opportunity in branching out to other aspects of one’s life: housing, exercising, schooling, etc. WeLive is the brainchild of WeWork’s founder Miguel McKelvey. It is founded on the premise that young professionals who live in metropolitan areas these days do not need as much individual living space as before. This new communal housing provides shared kitchen and living room, which paved the road for micro units with private bathrooms and bedrooms. There are on-site baristas and bartenders, and many ways of interacting between residents. There are two WeLive locations, New York and Washington DC, targeting professionals who travel frequently and are looking for a flexible lease agreement. All the units are equipped with basic pots and pans, bedsheets, and even curated books. This is not just a commune disguised in the “We-” branding, but the very beginning of something much larger. As of now, WeWork is proposing a mega campus on the old Presidio site in San Francisco, that would accommodate one’s life from the early stages of kindergarten and preschool, all the way to living, working, and higher education at a college level.
Procedural algorithm for generating private office layouts. International Journal of Architectural Computing, 2018 33
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Anatomy of a micro-unit at WeLive 110 Wall Street, New York ARExA, 2016 35
The Presidio proposal has: WeWork, WeWork Labs, Innovation Garage, Veterans in Residence, Creators in Residence, WeGrow, Flatiron School, Rise by We (which is gym for all the residents). It is not unprecedented if we consider Karl Marx Hof in Vienna, where the complex is big enough to contain four kindergartens, aiming to provide infrastructure support for a family’s need every way possible. But what WeWork is proposing is something at a much larger scale than a local project like Karl Marx Hof. They are marketing for a new definition of international and universal, developing something that is workable at a global scale, transportable from location to location, be it New York to DC, or Los Angeles to Tokyo. Their business is growing with the standard attitude of seeing something that works and fits, acquiring those services, and isolating them from the rest of the market. One example is their acquisition of Case, a building information and technology consultancy that provides customized BIM solutions for efficient project management. This acquisition allowed WeWork to focus on subsequent BIM developments in scanning and “printing” an existing space at
Karl Marx-Hof, Vienna Bwag/Commons, 2015 36
a much faster rate than relying on conventional blueprints for building information. WeWork continues to expand aggressively at a global scale and is expected to grow exponentially. The impact that WeWork will have on the culture and physical environment of the workplace is inevitable. Most architects will agree that the spatial quality of WeWork office spaces is not the driving force that spearheaded the company to its current status. In fact, most architects would dismiss the spaces as being undesirable. Design decisions are made in order to determine the culture of the workplace. The degree of openness, types of desks, interior design, amenities, and events offered are input variables that produce a certain output. WeWork Community managers will point out that the placement of amnenities such as fruit water, beer and kombucha on tap are done so to maximize collaboration and interaction. Architects aim to set the design of the spaces to cultivate a specific culture of the workplace.
Draft beer on tap in WeWork locations. Amy F. Robertson, 2016 37
What WeWork aims to control is not the design of the spaces, but rather the culture of workplace. For WeWork, the culture of the workplace has the same capacity as architecture in terms of its susceptibility to be designed. Culture is no longer an output, but a type of input that can be controlled. According to the US industry standard, typical office space per person is about 200 sq. ft.; WeWork provides about 60 to 80 sq.ft. that are jampacked, and at times over-packed. Yet however, the growth of their membership does not decline, and is projected to double every year. Current conventions and standards regarding the workspace rely on the physical quantitative data to make it seem desirable. But as WeWork demonstrates with their growing membership, the qualitative aspects, such as proximity of commute, social/communal opportunities, and amenities that are overlooked in the standards are more valued than the quantitative measurement of square footage. The success of WeWork derives not only from technical and financial strategies, but also from its approachability. WeWork shows the capacity to expand the architect’s scope to design beyond just architecture. WeWork demonstrates design opportunities not just in utilizing data-driven technology, but also in recognizing and utilizing “lifestyle� as an asset that can be produced and marketed. Consequently, WeWork is not offering any innovation in the form of architectural design, but rather they offer unconventional lifestyle in the form of conventional space through their data-driven methodology, shifting from place-based to data-based design solutions.
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Access and Publics
May Khaikaew and Neta Nakash
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Access and Publics May Khaikaew and Neta Nakash
The creation of co-working places produces a hierarchy of private and public spaces, which are achieved through diverse memberships, plan layouts, barriers, and design features. Many models of co-working spaces rely on exclusivity, limiting access to certain demographics, while others work to bring diverse groups together for enhanced learning, knowledge production, and creativity. Through these physical, social, and economic barriers, a hierarchy is present in all co-working spaces. However, with new membership types, the placement of public programming at the periphery, and the use of shared furniture layout
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and translucent materials, a select group of co-working spaces are resisting and softening the exclusive nature of co-working business models in critical spatial moments. These co-working models create platforms, a new form of public space, through these inclusive spaces that encourage both members and non-members to interact and collaborate, elevating work experiences. Memberships at co-working spaces come with exclusivity. Typically, the most basic membership is a flexible or hot desk, which grants a user privileged access to a work space. Should a user desire more regularity, they can purchase a dedicated or permanent desk. Both models are typically committed to a monthly membership plan, where only those who have a membership will have access to the work area and accompanying amenities, creating a semi-private work environment. Some co-working spaces provide private offices, which are not situated in an open-floor plan like that of flexible or permanent desk members. Private offices are enclosed spaces
Public to private access in membership plans of three co-working spaces. Authors, 2018
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floor plan, such as gallery and event rooms, to create a blending of private and inclusive spaces. For example, the most public and accessible area of A/D/O, ​a mix-use creative space in Brooklyn, NY serving both artists and the larger community, i​ s the outdoor courtyard patio, which can be used by anyone. Non-members can then enter the building through the patio directly into the exhibition space. This central gallery space is open to the public as work space and event space. The retail and restaurant spaces adjacent to the gallery allow for non-members to engage the building, in contrast to the artist workspace, shop, and library, which are semi-private spaces dedicated for co-working members. Similarly, Inbound League, a co-working and event space for tourists and those working in the tourist industry, is organized vertically, positioning its most public areas such as cafe, reception, resources, and workspace at the ground-floor garage. The second-floor presentation room and top-floor event space are open to the public as well, drawing non-members further up into the building to engage members in these spaces. At an urban scale, the Inbound League groundfloor garage creates a public corridor connecting to a future 44
Public to private spaces in three co-working spaces. Authors, 2018
within the co-working model, reproducing a high level of exclusivity. Often, co-working spaces will cater to a targeted audience through their location and provided amenities such as a fabrication lab or a child day care. These businesses require additional stipulations of their members such as belonging to a specific industry, excluding many from even applying for membership. Some co-working spaces are softening this typical hierarchical model by providing more membership options as well as spaces that require no membership, such as the ability to reserve meeting rooms and attend events without being a member. This allows for members to interact with non-members, breaking down physical exclusivity in select spaces. Many co-working spaces do not engage with their urban context, requiring membership for access to all spaces. While their interior spaces may be a diverse and intermingled open floor plan with hot desks and private offices, only members are permitted in these spaces, creating a clear cut boundary of exclusivity. However, some co-working spaces challenge this by placing public programs along the periphery of the co-working space, such as retail, coffee shops, patios, and restaurants. Some co-working places go as far as intermixing these public programs throughout the 45
A/D/O’s storefront. Frank Oudeman, 2016
hotel project at the end of the block. In doing so, Inbound League creates and attracts a sense of public at an urban scale, enhancing opportunities for tourists and members alike. While many co-working spaces are located in larger office buildings, regulating access at the entrance, some co-working places are softening these traditional physical barriers. In addition to placing public programs at the periphery, storefront windows at the exterior retail of A/D/O or at the main entry to the cafe and restaurant of Station F, a co-working campus for startups, invites individuals to enter and engage these places. The storefronts act as a welcoming agent and a first step for people to discover these co-working spaces at their most public zone. Additionally, the exterior patio that cuts into the A/D/O building footprint is an architectural move that guides community and invites them to 46
notice and enter the building. Signage is used in front of establishments to inform pedestrians that they are welcome to access and utilize the co-working space. These signifiers break down any presumption of a non-public area and invite non-members to the interior to engage members, thus working to overcome social and economic barriers. This softening of boundaries continues in the interior, where design features such as large sectional openings like at Station F, allow offices to overlook the inner street. At Station F, the inner street becomes a sightline connecting different users and offices,
Translucency mitigates privacy at WeWork Fulton Center, New York. WeWork, 2018
A/D/O’s furniture encourages collaboration. nARCHITECTS, 2016 47
encouraging collaboration and innovation. Similarly, glass panel systems have been a common partition in many co-working spaces such as at WeWork and Cross Campus. While it allows light to reach more interior spaces and allows for more subdivisions, the translucent nature takes away visual privacy. The exclusivity of a truly private office is challenged in co-working models, where members are reminded that they are part of a broader office ecosystem. While not all barriers are dissolved, many can be softened for example through materials such as glass and curtains, reducing the hierarchical nature of co-working. At A/D/O, as well as at many other offices, desks are aggregated in long tables rather than cubicle or private individual offices. Therefore, furniture layout becomes a catalyst for collaboration among users of the shared space. At the interior, design manipulations and materiality work to support diverse demographics in co-working spaces, while the exterior signifies inclusion at the urban scale. While co-working places are often exclusive, in precedents such as A/D/O, Inbound League, and Station F, public or semi-public access to co-working spaces is given, transforming the space to a platform which elevates a community of diverse users. Some co-working spaces challenge exclusivity by broadening their member base, opening resources and spacesto non-members, and strategically incorporating public program both at the periphery and throughout the co-working space. Through architectural design strategies and materiality, some co-working places make attempts to engage their local urban context and communities by providing welcome markers. These co-working spaces not only challenge traditional exclusivity, but go further to thoughtfully create public and semi-public platforms that elevate member and non-member experience. Platforms have been created at various co-working spaces across multiple industries to promote innovation, collaboration, and dissemination of knowledge and resources. Working as a system 48
A/D/O’s exhibition space. Gary He, 2017
Inner Street at Station F. La Brigade de Gourmets, 2018
Inbound League garage. UDS, 2017 49
that facilitates interactions between distinct demographics, these spaces often serve to mediate between thresholds of private and public areas, softening or removing physical, social and economic barriers. The exhibition space at A/D/O is interconnected with other programs of the building, providing artists the opportunity to exhibit to an audience beyond the gallery setting. Here community members can engage and learn about the art work and even attend free artist talks. At Inbound League, the garage is the public platform which supports and connects tourists with local tourism opportunities. At Cross Campus, event rooms are semi-public platforms which support learning for the tech and aerospace community, allowing members and non-members to engage and network with one another. At Station F, the inner street is a semi-private platform that supports the collaboration and innovation distinct of tech startups. The artist co-working space at A/D/O as one shared room is a semi-private platform which fosters partnerships and growth opportunities among designers. Each platform breaks down the boundaries through either memberships, architectural design strategies, materiality, and signage. The co-working precedents mentioned in this essay have produced new publics that operate as platforms to advance and activate co-working spaces, elevating the experience of both members and non-members. We believe that in order to create successful co-working spaces that are not entirely exclusive, it is essential for co-working businesses to focus not only on members but non-members as well and provide accessible amenities. Through thoughtful consideration of diverse membership plans, program layout with public and semi-public programming, and consideration for materiality, signage, and architectural operations to remove or soften barriers, co-working spaces can resist exclusivity and benefit from a connection to urban context. While co-working spaces can’t dissolve all boundaries nor overcome all hierarchy, by designing spaces dedicated to learning, 50
sharing, and collaborating, co-working places become the site of innovation, creativity, and partnership.
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Co-working as Urban Overlay Erin Day and Jian Xie
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Co-working as Urban Overlay Erin Day and Jian Xie
Drawing away from traditions of work being embedded in a singular and physical office, co-working is breaking new ground, not by offering free coffee or a casual ambiance, but by offering itself as an alternate system of essential services positioned within a greater system of infrastructure. Companies such as WeWork operate as providers of curated services that adapt to new flexible modes of work and networking. While WeWork is essentially offering real estate services, the real product that they sell is access to a robust network of services tailored towards a holistic life experience, rather than simply offering desk space. Work retreat company Remote Year expands the notion of co-working across the globe by providing a nomadic work lifestyle. Participants work remotely at their normal job, moving to a new location each month. The company coordinates accommodations, 24-hour access to workspace, and cultural programming to provide an integrated work-live travel experience, satisfying a broad spectrum of human needs and desires. These types of companies begin to take on a wider role in providing essential services to their clients through a managerial process, as well as developing a robust system of physical infrastructure. This forms an overlay onto the existing city, strategically targeting and augmenting existing networks. WeWork in particular, gains appeal in large part due to their flexibility and adaptability to workers on the go. The myriad 54
Remote Year worker answers emails on top of Machu Picchu. Charles Du, 2017
of locations is not simply an issue of localized supply and demand but an intentional creation of a network that offers its members access to space and services anywhere they may be. WeWork has expanded this ethos to create systems of supportive infrastructure, including housing, education, and co-working. These services are connected and curated under a robust managerial team, as well as a wider branding strategy that links these diverse services into a single product. As these companies expand and begin to offer services typically provided by the government, these networks become a product as well as a system of layered infrastructure that allows its users to have access to essential services. Through providing access to an immersive network of physical services, an inversion of the public and private occurs as companies begin to operate in a structuring capacity, providing a new governing architecture 55
Vision for the WeWork Ecosystem. Miguel McKelvely, 2009
that allows its users to bypass services that are not provided by the WeWork branding strategy. By being overlaid onto a transnational network, WeWork begins to operate as a separate architecture, grafted onto more traditional systems of urban infrastructure. In describing itself and the services it provides, The We Company (seeded from WeWork), claims its mission is: “To create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.” This admission describes a desire to provide essential services as a holistic branding strategy. While it overtly describes itself as a builder of community, where “creators” act as independent agents collaborating with like-minded and driven individuals, its real function is to provide a gated public. Similarly to how transnational companies act in para-governmental capacities 56
WeWork common area in Dalian Lu, Shanghai. Nick Tortajada, 2018
Communal space in WeLive Crystal City, Washington, DC. WeLive
Play space in WeGrow, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group. David Burke, 2018 57
Branding stills from The We Company’s website. www.we.co, 2019 58
(i.e. Google, Apple, etc.), WeWork acts in a similar capacity but extends beyond the economic role into providing the social, educational, health, and other essential services to its user base. This framing of the We Company is intended to bring like-minded individuals together to overcome traditional boundaries of collaboration and to cultivate a creative work culture. It is therefore positioned as a global community framed on the basis of tiered access. While WeWork’s mission of grafting onto (and inevitably supplanting) localized infrastructure is largely framed in utopian terms, its ultimate goal is to provide a tiered social and economic system that one can buy into via membership (as opposed to citizenship). In a perverse sense, what is often referred to as “community” in various co-working enterprises functions more as creating a condensed entrepreneurial caste that separates “workers” from “creators.” As it begins to take on childcare and educational services as an alternative to public schools, the We Company also ensures the reproduction of a new generation of membership and social continuity within the system. In fact, WeWork (We Company) is valued as and has a business model that is more analogous to a tech start-up, despite that fact that its primary revenue source is the subleasing of real estate. This validates the position that the We Company’s primary interest is providing a service rather than simply renting out shared office space. Even founder Adam Neumann rather esoterically described the business model as such: “WeWork” isn’t really a real estate company. It’s a state of consciousness, a generation of interconnected emotionally intelligent entrepreneurs.” While this description fits the larger agenda of culture building, the company is fundamentally different than a traditional real estate venture. For example, while hot desks are offered as an affordable option, they also function as a 59
branding strategy and amenity to higher tier customers and therefore add to the overall value proposition. Even the cultivated culture of start ups and “creators� is offered out as a service to larger, more established firms looking to lease for events. The very nature of independent contractors/companies under the same roof is commodified as network opportunities and participation in a shared culture. WeLive similarly offers the value proposition of shared culture and networking above a simple real estate transaction. While WeWork spends more than traditional real estate ventures on cultural and branding opportunities without the significantly higher revenue, its value as a company is based more on speculation and name recognition. While not necessarily nefarious by nature, co-working strategies operate on a model that creates a new privatized public. These new networks are then grafted onto public urban infrastructure and either meet gaps that the state and traditional private enterprise are unable to, or provide higher quality services. By exploiting this demand and building robust systems of services (such as housing, work space, health, and educational services) WeWork and similar institutions have expanded beyond the office environment towards a new holistic system that allows users members to immerse themselves within a greater platform.
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Credits Studio Instructor
Hitoshi Abe
Dept. of Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA
Editor
Josh Nelson
xLAB Research Group, UCLA
Copy Editors
Marko Icev
Dept. of Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA
Kyle Stover
Dept. of Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA
Layout
Shannon Blue Freelance designer
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Book design and cover by Josh Nelson
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2019 AU D U C L A
