How can you optimize space planning for a coworking space?

In my experience, the one thing you need to be prepared for is changes in the market. What people want and need is going to evolve, so designing for flexibility is key. Accessible or open ceilings, mechanical and wiring chases, floor cutouts for future boxes or poke-throughs should all be considered. In the past we have looked at demountable partitions between offices, but they can be expensive, ugly, or both. Now, we try to avoid placing any wiring or ductwork in walls that separate office spaces. This way, if we do need to take a wall down to accommodate any sort of expansion, we aren't dealing with the added expense of rerouting MEP's which can be the most costly element of any rework of a space.

Our first coworking space had a mix of open and private space. We wanted to remove the partitions, but our landlord wouldn’t allow us, so we rented out the private offices. Later, we moved to a new building with only shared space. We can now see the advantages of having a mix of private offices and shared space: 1. We could access two markets simultaneously, shared and private. 2. The private offices were rarely empty and provided a constant revenue stream while the shared space revenue fluctuated wildly. 3. Some teams are simply too noisy and need their own space. On the negative side, some of the private office users did not integrate with the rest of the community. However, very little effort would be required to remedy this.

It is important to consider how the zones work together and what effect they have on each other as well. A well thought out noise level zoning arrangement can increase the accessibility and usablility of your space. In general I have found that a relax zone is for most people a quiet zone and so having it also set up to be a place for a casual conversation means that it meets no one's needs and so no one will use it. People whose relaxation needs include interacting with other people, are generally found near the kitchen area as there is unavoidable noise there. So that's a good place to put a noisy networking and phone calling zone. Planning zones is best done after careful observation of the actual use patterns in the space.

Activity based zoning is a very powerful tool in case of space optimisation in a coworking space design. Proximity analysis to be done for space interrelation and minimize additional circulation area.

It is really key to be able to change the use of the space as the users' needs change. I have a background in Stage Management so drew on that and I think of the space setup as a theater stage set. We can break it down and create almost any setting that a coworker would like if we have enough notice It is also important to the coworkers to have some things be reliable. Once a coworker has their "staging" just as they like it, we take a picture and break it down into a box, then recreate it exactly the next time they come in. So it is -- for their subjective experience -- as though they had never left and there are people who like this a lot.

Flexibility is essential in a coworking space. People and teams come and go. Every few months we need to reconfigure the furniture to suit the people currently in the space. We build our desks from wooden kitchen worktops, so we can disassemble and reassemble them in any configuration we desire in just a few hours, or even minutes for small changes. Our desks can switch quickly between team, individual, full-time, hot desks and meeting room tables, quickly and efficiently. A drawback could be that they don’t look like standard desks, but nobody has ever mentioned this to me as an issue. They a not as deep as a traditional desk, but we no longer use VDU’s and typewriters; laptops and flat screen take up much less space, in terms of depth.

Thankfully coworking spaces are all about personality and identity. That is what gives each brand provider its unique signature. Achieved through empathetic details that promote productivity, collaborative thinking, welcoming, and break from the day or socialising/ networking.... depending on the area. These large spaces can be divided into zones while retaining openness, yet division and privacy as needed. True mastery of coworking spaces is achieved when able to seamlessly interact between these zones, with a sense of freedom in working style and minimal interruptions to work on achieving your business goals.

Remember that your space is not just a workspace or even a community, it is a living network. People in the space should be encouraged to interact, whether they are remote employees, freelancers, team members or virtual users. Because, these network links, whether weak or strong, will provide support, innovation, growth and success. Remember, it's not desks... it's a network.