Conference article

Can coworking spaces be built bottom-up?

Giuliano Simonelli
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Francesco Scullica
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Elena Elgani
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Vanessa Monna
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

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Published in: ServDes2018. Service Design Proof of Concept, Proceedings of the ServDes.2018 Conference, 18-20 June, Milano, Italy

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 150:64, p. 761-771

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Published: 2018-07-05

ISBN: 978-91-7685-237-8

ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)

Abstract

Coworking is moving beyond its childhood years, and, as it’s growing up, it’s facing new challenges. Some questions are sparking, such as: how can coworking spaces retain their users? Is coworking involving the actual amount of users who it is saying to engage? Does the coworking movement affect cities and neighbourhoods? Can coworking spaces be built bottom-up? The paper starts with an analysis of the nature of paradigms of contemporary work, fertile terrain for the creation of coworking spaces, which are analyzed according to their characteristics in terms of people, spaces, goods, and processes. The analysis highlights a series of information that leads us to suggest that, yes, coworking spaces could actually be built bottom-up and that this process would bring great benefits to them, especially from the point of view of the community of people within and around them.

Keywords

coworking spaces, hybrid spaces, bottom-up, community, space quality

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