my question to you guys is throughout out your experience in co working spaces is there a design language which can be related in all coworking spaces ?
Hi Jasmeet! Check out this recent thread:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/coworking/Tvf2gg-WZ5w
As you’ll see from the discussion, there are very few things that apply to all coworking space.
But there ARE a lot of design language (read more simply, patterns that predictably work), and a lot of the ones I’ve written about on this forum I’ve also written about on my blog - http://dangerouslyawesome.com. A few “getting started” patterns are linked right on the homepage for easy access 
The most common meta-theme of successful coworking design, though, is keeping members at the center of your actions and decisions. That plays out in nearly ALL of the different more tactical design patterns that we’ve uncovered and shared here over the years!
There are ALSO some outside scholarly works that I’ve referenced that you should definitely check out, they’re near the bottom of this page (which reminds me, I have a bunch of new things to add!) Recommended Reading | Alex Hillman
-Alex
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On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 2:54 PM, jasmeet saluja [email protected] wrote:
my question to you guys is throughout out your experience in co working spaces is there a design language which can be related in all coworking spaces ?
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thank you alex that helped a lot, but my questions were framed not just on the aspect you answered in the thread you shared but also on terms of say:
how important are the interiors,
how well should the place be planned,
because i feel as these spaces are becoming a hub for creative fields say writers, designers, architects etc. Does the space itself also needs to be a creative environment
also the concept of co-working spaces boosts itself on being the one which allows us flexibility which is added with community leading to communication of ideas which eventually leads to innovation.
i remember chris messina (guy from hat factory) saying that “we can sometimes be interesting people and so when we
are around interesting people interesting things usually happen. That’s the
process we like to call accelerated serendipity”.
would you like to add a few people who might work in coworking spaces or are design students which might help me understand this concept more?
Jasmeet, as an architect, this is a question we have to answer regularly. The design of a space is important (both the interiors and space planning) but whether it’s more or less than something else, is impossible to answer. At the end of the day, it’s what you value. In my opinion, design is vital, but that’s just how I value it.
What do you constitute as a “creative” environment?
Foosball?
Raw surfaces?
High ceilings?
etc.
JEROME CHANG
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···
On Oct 21, 2014, at 1:18 PM, jasmeet saluja [email protected] wrote:
thank you alex that helped a lot, but my questions were framed not just on the aspect you answered in the thread you shared but also on terms of say:
how important are the interiors,
how well should the place be planned,
because i feel as these spaces are becoming a hub for creative fields say writers, designers, architects etc. Does the space itself also needs to be a creative environment
also the concept of co-working spaces boosts itself on being the one which allows us flexibility which is added with community leading to communication of ideas which eventually leads to innovation.
i remember chris messina (guy from hat factory) saying that “we can sometimes be interesting people and so when we
are around interesting people interesting things usually happen. That’s the
process we like to call accelerated serendipity”.
would you like to add a few people who might work in coworking spaces or are design students which might help me understand this concept more?
–
Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Firstly thanks for the reply Jerome,
the answer to your question is “all of the above to be honest”.
say for example, Foosball, what it represents to me is an informal activity or space within cluster of formal spaces. right.
raw finishes, high ceiling are just a part of the whole picture…
in my understanding of co-working there are certain elements which are of utmost importance, “fun, community, office, creativity”
now do these aspects also need to be represented say in our layouts, furniture design, finishes etc.
the big question, basically is there a universal language or design or layouts which can be followed in these spaces ?
if possible add people from from your field if you can,or people who work there, or designers, would just get a different perspective.
Thank you Jerome
There’s no universal language then. Creative, collaborative…these are all adjectives with subjective connotations and interpretations.
Jerome
···
On Oct 23, 2014, at 12:32 PM, jasmeet saluja [email protected] wrote:
Firstly thanks for the reply Jerome,
the answer to your question is “all of the above to be honest”.
say for example, Foosball, what it represents to me is an informal activity or space within cluster of formal spaces. right.
raw finishes, high ceiling are just a part of the whole picture…
in my understanding of co-working there are certain elements which are of utmost importance, “fun, community, office, creativity”
now do these aspects also need to be represented say in our layouts, furniture design, finishes etc.
the big question, basically is there a universal language or design or layouts which can be followed in these spaces ?
if possible add people from from your field if you can,or people who work there, or designers, would just get a different perspective.
Thank you Jerome
–
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You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
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i think this is where you might be wrong jerome,
in all these spaces, if you notice
there are a bunch of small pockets of spaces within this whole space,
let it be a lounge space, a smoking room, private space(phone booth), even a cafe(sometimes).
so i think there might be a universality in this…
hello guys, did a brief research sharing some of my findings…
A research was conducted by the hbr(harvard business review) using with about 50 executives at a pharmaceuticals company who were
responsible for nearly $1 billion in annual sales. They wanted to increase
sales but didn’t know what behaviors would help. To understand that sociometric
badges were deployed which tracked how these executives talked to one another,
who talks to whom & for how long, how they moved around the office space
& where they spent how much time.
The data collected over some weeks showed that when
a salesperson increased interactions with coworkers on other teams—that is**,
increased exploration—by 10%, his or her sales also grew by 10%.** The firm in response to that, changed space to get their sales
staff running into colleagues from other departments. They used the idea of a
centralized cafe to get the coworkers to interact with each other. At the time,
the company had roughly one coffee machine for every six employees and the same
people used the same machines every day. The only interaction which happened
was within the department. To change this system, the company invested several
hundred thousand dollars to rip out the coffee stations and build fewer, bigger
ones—just one for every 120 employees, creating bigger cafeterias for the
employees. In the quarter which followed, sales rose by 20%, or $200 million,
quickly justifying the capital investment in the redesign.
One has to understand placing strategic coffee
machines can be easily seen as development nodes which are used in urban
planning. Development nodes basically are geographic points where
economic or social resources/activities are concentrated for the benefit of a community
by pulling people & resources together within a close distance. Nodes therefore
facilitate in community building & development.
This might indulge managers to simply build big
social gathering spaces and expect great result. But the firms have to
understand firstly what they’re trying to achieve (higher productivity? more
creativity?) before changing a space. What it suggests is to have a space right at
the center, which allows ample interactions to take place. But what is doesn’t
suggest is to follow this concept blindly. There has to be a great deal of
substance to back it off.
Let’s now look at Xerox’s Wilson Center for Research
and Technology. The firm created the “LX Common” to encourage informal
encounters among employees in separate groups. The Common afforded great
proximity: It was centrally located and was traversed by people walking from
the main entrance to their labs, from one lab to another, and to the conference
room. It contained the kitchen, the photocopier and printers, and key reference
materials, and this functional centrality also drove traffic. But as teams
started having conversations and meetings there, people began taking long
detours around it.[1]
The problem?
The Common created so much proximity and so little
privacy that engineers couldnʼt pass through without risking being sucked into
a meeting, informal or otherwise. So they avoided the space altogether.
By looking at both the examples one can understand
that there has to be a balance between proximity & privacy of the space,
so that one can have both “open and shut” conversations and encounters.