Unilever Agile Workspace – Switzerland
More and more companies are adopting agile working arrangements, we recently saw how Microsoft embraced coworking in Amsterdam, now it is the turn of Unilever in Switzerland. The offices were designed by Camenzind Evolution, the ethos behind it being that the company doesn’t care where the work is done, as long as it gets done. As we know, one of the benefits of coworking and hotdesking is that is can reduce overheads. In Unilever’s case adopting an agile workplace saved it about 40% on real estate overheads. It seems that hotdesking and agile working is no longer a thing of the future, not only does it increase employee satisfaction, it also makes business sense. Here at eOffice we’re glad this trend is going from strength to strength, if you’d like to learn more about how you can take advantage of hotdesking and coworking check out our main website to see what we have to offer.
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Coworking Office Desk
Add+ is an innovative concept for office furniture that is specifically designed for coworking spaces. It was created by Aram Haydeyan in collaboration with Casitoo’s graduate designer Tobias Fortsch. The coworking desk allows for a full range of expansion options. The furniture was designed to allow it to be assembled and dissembled rapidly, which makes it perfect for smaller office spaces that require their rooms to serve many purposes. The desk provides many flexible arrangements and a numerous combination of units can be added. All in all the furniture promises to make coworking easier and more efficient.
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Freelancing Madrilenos choose co-working over home offices
The economic crisis sees freelance Madrileños opting to “co-work” in a creative, social alternative to the home office.
Utopic_Us is a shared-usage space for rent behind Plaza Mayor, in the center of Madrid. It has an open floor plan, flexible for its office space, events, galleries and classes. Currently, 100 “autonomos,” working for themselves in creative fields, are sharing workspaces in two old wholesale storage facilities. Co-workers include bloggers, jewelry designers, architects, IT programmers, painters, sculptors, audio and visual engineers, and publicists.
When SmartPlanet was visiting, some members were hosting business meetings with clients in the shared workspace.
“Our space is generating new energies. It is a hybrid space that gathers characteristics of a lab, an education centre, a studio, a living room and kitchen, where a variety of ingredients are mixed and experienced in innumerable ways,” as it is described on their official marketing.
For a monthly fee from 75 euros for ten hours a week to 250 euros for unlimited access, Utopic_Us members are able to use the office space, equipped with WiFi and phones. Members also receive discounts for the Utopic_School.
“It’s a factory of transforming ideas,” said Raimond Garcia, in his native Spanish. Garcia is a Ruby Web developer who has spent the last year working at Utopic_Us, following five years working “in pajamas” from home. He is also going to teach a workshop on Ruby there next month. Garcia said, working at Utopic_Us “is much more social. There’s an equilibrium of men and women, a lot of synergy, and the networking is impressive.”
Compared with the cost of renting their own office space and paying for their utilities individually, members find great value in their investment.
Santiago Vallado is owner of DF Produciones, a one-man video production company he has been running out of Utopic_Us for the last six months. He does not think the 250 euros he pays each month is too steep. He said in Spanish that “It’s not a lot of money and it has so many more things,” than working from home or renting an external office space.
Before coming to Utopic_Us, Vallado spent two years managing his business from home, saying, “It’s basically annoying. A thousand distractions. You work longer hours, but less efficiently.” He uses Utopic_Us for networking, already having made videos for some of his co-workers’ marketing projects. He described Utopic_Us “like a multinational office space” filled with people sharing different experiences and ideas.
Vallado added that he likes to bounce ideas off his colleagues during 15-minute breaks spent playing ping-pong and soccer.
Utopic_School features workshops that cost anywhere from nothing up to 650 euros. Some topics covered have been motivation, sustainability, experimental methodologies, and digital technologies, to name a few. The communications manager Olivia Czetwertyrski described Utopic_Us’s business model as focused on learning, seeing, feeling, sharing, and getting to know people and new ideas.
Czetwertyrski is one of seven staff members. She started with Utopic_Us as a co-worker 18 months ago. Czetwertyrski is now employed by the company itself, in charge of internal and external communications, working with the different brands, events and accounts that use their office space. Some events included Reebok, Hendrix, Brugal and public relations for the Community of Andalusia, Spain.
The current facilities have space for about 150 co-workers. They hope to expand their business model to other cities inside and outside Spain. They are even looking into offering visa sponsorships for co-workers to travel to other future Utopic_Us locations to work.
“There´s a lot of things we can do better and a lot more we can do,” Czetwertyrski said, also in Spanish. This included creating storage space for the small business owners to use. “Poco a poco,” she said, which means little by little or step-by-step.
With small businesses looking to decrease costs and increase innovation, co-working is already popular in the United States and Great Britain. Utopic_Us is the biggest official space in Spain, but it certainly will not be the last.
By Jennifer Riggins via SmartPlanet
Office Space Designed for Coworking – Houston, Texas
NRG Energy has their HQ in downtown Houston, in 2009 NRG a New-Jersey based power company acquired Reliant Energy which in turn was Texas based. The acquisition meant that 165 NRG employees needed to join the 1,200 strong Reliant workforce in Houston. The office space was therefore designed by Kirksey to help ease the organisational challenges which such a merger involves. Kirksey also wanted to increase collaboration between the various new co-workers, while at the same time “leverage the unique retail location for their PR efforts”. The office occupies 11 floors and is sized at 262,000 square foot.
The new facility contains no private offices and uses a single standard for all workspaces. Employees sit at identical benching-type workstations, which was the standard at NRG’s corporate headquarters in New Jersey. This creates a collaborative, flexible work environment that encourages the exchange of ideas and information between employees.
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CoWorking – Oklahoma City
Located in midtown of Oklahoma City okcCoco Coworking Collaborative is a shared workplace for creatives and entrepreneurs alike. The okcCoco is 7500 square feet of space with coworking areas, a 14-person boardroom, conference rooms, private offices, social lounge, and an event space. The urban professional atmosphere is perfect for new startups or for companies to host and cater events.
[box] For more information, visit the okcCoCo. Other cool workspaces include eOffice. [/box]
Blankspaces – Work For Yourself Not By Yourself
Blankspaces offers flexible office plans to start-ups, freelancers, and entrepreneurs by the hour, day, and month. Blankspaces is located in two locations in California: Santa Monica and Los Angeles. The services they provide include; private offices, open work stations that are great for small companies, work bar for coworking, conference rooms, meeting rooms for quick meetings, virtual offices, and a lounge area to take a break from work.
[box] For more information visit the Blankspaces. If you’re interested in learning more on about cool workspaces around the world be sure to check-out our main site eOffice. [/box]
Shared Office Space – Miami
MiamiShared is located in a brand new high rise building, providing 8,000 sq ft of shared office space Miami. The facility features ultra-modern architecture and design with large floor-to-ceiling windows overseeing the blue skies of Miami. Services provided by MiamiShared range from meeting rooms and video conferencing to hosting networking events. They also provide optional services such as web design , IT support, PPC services and computer rental. MiamiShared is a modern and affordable shared office space for entrepreneurs and small businesses in Miami.
If you are looking for shared office space in Miami, or other cities in the United States, please click here to see the cool services eOffice has to offer.
Skype Office
Skype has recently opened up its new office space in Stockholm, choosing to base themselves in a huge historical building that was once Sweden’s largest brewery. The building operated as a brewery between 1857 and 1971! The Skype Office space moved from their old offices in Slussen which could only house around 35 employees to their new office space that has room for over 100.
The architect in-charge of redesigning the Skype office was Mette Larsson Wedborn of PS Arkitektur. Larsson Wedborn and his team sought to invigorate the building and instill the playful characteristics of the Skype brand. In order to achieve this playful and cheerful feel the designers used bright colours, round shapes and funky light fixtures.
We think this new Skype Office is definitely a great environment in which to work. As all great offices should, this new space represents the values of Skype while at the same time achieving the perfect balance of form and function.
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West End Office Space – Most Expensive in the World!
West End office space has recently regained its title as the most expensive office space in the world. We recently reported that the West End was kicked off the top stop by Tokyo, but according to property agents Knight Frank West End office space in London rose by around 31% in recent times – meaning that by the end of 2010 each square foot of office space in the West End of London cost around £85. Furthermore, according to many analysts the recovery of the financial markets coupled with renewed demand by media companies such as Google and Apple has meant that West End Office spaces are now nearer the £90 a square foot price, thereby making them the most expensive in the world on average.
It’s because of high prices such as this that many start-ups, entrepreneurs and even established businesses turn to virtual office solutions. For many such solutions offer the convenience of working wherever you want, but also the prestige and associated benefits of having a presence in central London without having to pay the huge costs mentioned above. If you are interested in Virtual Office solutions in Central London please click here to see some of the great options eOffice has to offer.
Office Space Sweden – Fabric “Village”
This amazing office space in Sweden was designed by Electric Dreams, a firm made up of architect Catharina Frankander and product designer Joel Degermark. This office space in Sweden was designed to be the head office for Fabric retail, it occupies three floors and houses 150 employees.
The architects wanted to design the space so as to turn its flaws into positive, and so they decided to turn the once dull and unassuming corridors into bright exuberant office space. They called the concept Fabricville, turning this Swedish office space into a busy village street with each workshop building for clothes designers and each office building for marketing and conference rooms turned into a part of this concept village. To add to this each floor has a different colour scheme to match the values and identity of the brand occupying that floor.
At eOffice we have an array of office spaces in Sweden, including cities such as Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo and Vasteras. If you are interested in great office spaces in Sweden please click here to find out more.
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