CROWD WORKING: The rise and rise of collaborative offices

New technology has been bringing previously unconnected people together to achieve things. We have crowd sourcing to develop ideas, and crowd funding to raise money. Now a new type of office is bringing people together, often in the service of advancing the tech economy.Collaborative offices are the real estate equivalent of crowd sourcing, but in the form of a rather cool serviced office. An office space is fitted out with a combination of meeting rooms, hot desks, and lots activity-based working (ABW) space, with sofas and communal tables. Entrepreneurs then take out memberships allowing different levels of access, where they will mingle with other people running their own firms. The fit-out is often unashamedly targeted towards Millennials, and the tech and creative industries.Some entrepreneurs pay by the hour to use a café area with wifi, while others pay monthly fees for all day access and wider ranging services.The concept is proof that offices are a necessity for any business, and the benefits they offer stretch beyond providing somewhere to log on to a computer. Entrepreneurs check into collaborative offices as they want the intellectual synergies that arise as people converse and trade ideas in a working environment. By banding together in communal office space, entrepreneurs are thus able to access the wider idea pool of their co-workers, in the same way staff in larger companies can when in the office.While collaborative offices first emerged in San Francisco, driven by technology entrepreneur demand, the past few years have seen the format go global. Having begun operations in New York in 2010, WeWork has since opened in 11 other U.S. cities, as well as in the U.K., the Netherlands and Israel. A year ago, they had no presence in London, but WeWork now has over 320,000 sq ft of office space there; some of it in technology and media districts like Soho and Whitechapel, but also in more traditional financial and insurance locations. In New York City, WeWork has 2 million sq ft of office space.WeWork is also branching out from flexible working to flexible living. It has established a new short-stay apartment format, known as WeLive, in two buildings where its collaborative offices are found – one in Washington DC, the other in Downtown Manhattan. A WeWork pre-let in the Brooklyn Navy Yard will also include WeLive apartments.To add to crowd sourcing, and crowd funding, we can now add crowd living.

Tech and Creative Tenants Drive Urban Economies Across the U.S Office demand is on the rise in the cities popular with tech and creative tenants.See the impact of the tech and creative sector on the urban economies across the U.S. in our 2016 Global Cities Report.To learn more about our full-service platform, visit www.ngkf.com