“More than just Space” : Designing to Support Assemblage in Virtual Creative Hubs

This paper aims to understand interactions at creative hubs, and how this understanding can be used to inform the design of virtual creative hubs – i.e., social-technical infrastructures that support hub-like interactions amongst people who aren’t spatially or temporally co-located. We present findings from a qualitative field study in UK creative hubs, in which we conducted seventeen observations and ten interviews in three sites. Our findings reveal a range of key themes that define interactions within creative hubs: smallness of teams; neutrality of the hubs; value of the infrastructure; activities and events; experience sharing; and community values and rules. These interactions together form a network and elements that influence one another to make a creative hub more than just physical space. We employ the concept of Assemblage introduced by Deleuze and Guattari to explore this network of interactions and, in doing so, reveal implications for the design of virtual creative hubs that seek to replicate them

‘Freelance isn’t free.’ Coworking as a critical urban practice to cope with informality in creative labour markets

For more than a decade, co-working spaces have proliferated in cities worldwide. The paper discusses co-working as a critical urban practice because these spaces give support to the rising number of freelance workers in culture and creative industries. Freelance workers are an ‘invisible’ workforce whose impact often remains ‘hidden’ (Mould et al. 2014), who are not sufficiently protected through social welfare regulations and do not enjoy the same social entitlements as employed workers. This paper uses the concept of informality to highlight ongoing informalisation processes of employment relationships as well as informal working practices in creative labour markets. It discusses the emergence of co-working as a practice of collective self-help and self-organisation to cope with and to potentially overcome the informality, uncertainty and risks associated with independent work. It argues that co-working can be seen in line with other practices of informal urbanism that become more prevalent in European and North American cities due to the lack of affordable housing, the retrenchment of the social welfare state and the imposed conditions of ‘austerity urbanism’ (Peck 2012

COWORKING: THE NEW DESIGN OF WORKPLACES

Globalisation of business, innovative technologies and increase in knowledge-based industries have had significant impacts on organisations’ business practices. This has subsequently affected the demand for space in built-facilities. As a result, the demand for flexible office space solutions such as coworking, or provision of communal, flexible office spaces on a short-term basis, have become a rapidly growing phenomenon. By conducting a case study analyses of two large property trusts in Australia, this research paper examines how the office layouts and configurations are adapted in coworking spaces to facilitate such innovative spaces. Findings identify that the main design strategies for coworking spaces are to enhance space autonomy, create communities, facilitate collaboration, create spontaneous encounters, create multi-purpose and multi-generational spaces, create productive work environments and reduce individual workplace footprints. The research findings emphasise the importance of having more dynamic and creative office layouts and configurations that are better aligned with the interests of landlords, space operators and diverse groups of office space users in flexible office arrangements

Analyzing Spaces for Social Interaction in Coworking Space: A case study on Common Ground Damansara Heights

Coworking is defined as people work and share the same facilities; creating social interaction to form a community. Through literature publication in Asia, most of the studies are focusing on market value and revenue; lack study on social interaction topic. This study aims to analyse spaces for user social interaction in coworking space in Common Ground Damansara Heights. To achieve the aim, it identifies types of social interaction in coworking space. Site observation and data are analysed to determine the availability of spaces for social interaction. This conclusion informs suggestion to designers and academics on consideration in coworking spaces for user to socialise.Keywords: Coworking; social interactioneISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.206

Think outside the box, work outside the office: remote work as a creative working model

In the creative industry, remote work is not an exceptional prerogative of freelancers anymore. Employees of advertising, design, marketing, and communication agencies have experienced working remotely since the beginning of 2020. The creative market tries to adapt to these changes and looks for a compromise. The aim of this study was to collect opinions about the advantages and disadvantages of remote and office-based work arrangements in the creative industry related to finance, communication, and working process features of each model. The qualitative approach was chosen to conduct the study. Twelve respondents shared their detailed answers to nine open questions. The findings reflected the influence of remote work implementation, but they didn’t tilt towards one or another side, but a compromise of the mix of both models was proposed by most of the respondents. Overall, the research demonstrates positive views about the remote collaborations and hiring freelancers, still there are some negative issues and barriers for remote workers and freelancers that have to be overcome. The negative aspects relate to the lack of team spirit and of managers’ open mindedness, and to the unstable financial situation of freelancers. This study contributes to the academic society with the theoretical advancement of creative remote work research, and to professionals with the insights and practical methods to manage their remote work efficiently.Na indústria criativa o trabalho remoto já não é uma prerrogativa exclusiva dos freelancers. Funcionários de agências de publicidade, design, marketing e comunicação têm vindo a desempenhar trabalho remoto desde o início de 2020. O mercado criativo tenta adaptar-se a estas mudanças e procura consensos entre as partes. O objetivo deste estudo foi recolher opiniões sobre as vantagens e desvantagens do trabalho remoto ou em escritório na indústria criativa, com base nas características financeiras, comunicacionais e laborais de cada modelo. Foi escolhida uma abordagem qualitativa na realização do estudo. Doze entrevistados proporcionaram respostas detalhadas a nove perguntas abertas. Os resultados refletiram a influência da implementação do trabalho remoto, mas não se inclinaram para um ou outro lado, tendo sido proposta uma combinação de ambos os modelos pela maioria dos entrevistados. No geral, a pesquisa demonstra pontos de vista otimistas quanto a colaborações remotas e contratação de freelancers, mas existem ainda alguns aspetos negativos e barreiras para trabalhadores remotos e freelancers que deverão ser ultrapassados. Os aspetos negativos estão relacionados com a falta de espírito de equipa e mente aberta por parte da gestão das empresas, assim como a instável situação financeira dos freelancers. Este estudo contribui para a comunidade académica com o avanço teórico da pesquisa referente ao trabalho criativo remoto e contribui para a prática profissional através de perceções e métodos práticos que visam conduzir o trabalho remoto de forma mais eficiente

Tempo per lo spazio: riflessioni sui «luoghi» di lavoro

The world of production has changed and so has the more general discourse on work. A series of significantstructural and political transformations have contributed to the diffusion of production organizations different from the past in which the principleof the co-existence between the time of delivery of the work and the space in which the work is provided has weakened. In this context, the very concept of workplace takes an ambiguous, hybrid, porous connotation, providing numerous opportunities whileraising fundamental questions.The aim of the article is to consider some organizational innovations and to reflect upon some relevantdevelopments in the field of economic and labor sociology starting from the analytical concept of the workplace