Why the Need for Creative Coworking Spaces?
What does it mean by creative coworking spaces? It’s all about the environment and design details. Read further on.
As many of us have realized over the course of this pandemic, where you work is an incredibly important factor for how you work. While most have made a full return to the office as the pandemic waned, many prefer the flexibility that comes with working from home.
Some companies have embraced portability and work flexibility, giving workers the option to work from anywhere, as well as expanding their hiring options to include faraway talent. For companies in major metropolitan hubs, providing the opportunity to work from anywhere comes with another benefit – the availability of coworking spaces, and the benefits they offer.
Creative Coworking Spaces Improve Productivity
There’s far more to a good coworking space than a set of shared desks, outlets, and a coffee vending machine. Coworking spaces that embrace good design philosophy and customer service capitalize on the most important element for a high-quality workspace: creativity.
Creative workspaces do more than just stimulate the senses, they’re a joy to work in, provide the right atmosphere for better camaraderie and cooperation, and make even the dullest days better through a combination of color selection, natural light, greenery, good design flow, and a number of options when it comes to workspaces and workstations.
To that end, a good coworking space can sharply improve productivity, especially in comparison to working from home.
Reigniting Camaraderie After COVID
For some employees, it’s been genuinely difficult rediscovering the social spark some of us need to socialize with our fellow employees. A coworking space can be an incredible way to reignite some of that camaraderie by giving employees much needed options when it comes to reintegrating themselves into the office environment.
Rather than being thrust into a designated space, coworking gives you the ability to choose whether you wish to work in a common area today, or isolate yourself to one of the more private work rooms.
Need time away to focus on the task at hand? You’ll probably be more than happy with a private room. Need a break from everything? Many coworking spaces offer dedicated nap rooms that are dimmed and sound-proof.
Need a different kind of break? Try the break room, or game room, depending on how the space is set up. And finally, when you feel the urge to work with some company around you, grab a seat in the common area.
More Than Just Work
A creatively designed workspace can help provide the promise that most workspaces often fail to deliver in – and that is creating a space that is about more than just work.
There is always a time and place for concentrated efforts in a coworking space, but a lot of it is dedicated towards cooperation and socialization, towards organic networking, and towards fostering creativity through fun design, frequent breaks, and social furnishings such as community tables and shared couches.
Break rooms are an excellent way to socialize outside of the context of work, whether through idle chit chat, games, or a cup of afternoon coffee or tea.
The Basic Elements of Creative Coworking Spaces
Of course, when it comes to going about the process of designing your own creative coworking space – or choosing one to integrate into your business and use as a space for employees – design philosophy is important.
Coworking spaces that capitalize on professionalism and dry corporate aesthetic may seem like a safe bet, but the lack of distractions can genuinely impact productivity in the long run. A colorful and creative environment can foster better ideas, smarter solutions, and healthier minds. Keep an eye out for these factors:
1. Light
Light is critically important, and not just for getting work done. The quality and kind of light you work with can have an impact on your mental health and your physical health – and in turn, the quality of your work.
Natural sunlight is best most of the time, so offices that are designed around making the most of the day’s natural light are always a plus. However, depending on where your office is based, you won’t have much access to light on certain days – whether due to weather or shifting seasons. The color and quality of your interior lighting matters here too, then.
After emphasizing and making the most of natural light, an office should strive to use eco-friendly and energy-saving lights at colors that are easy on the eyes, and help elevate mood.
2. Color
Speaking of color, there is limited albeit existing proof that color choices in interior design can have a palpable effect on the feel of an office. While not as important as lighting, good color choices can help an office design look and feel cohesive, rather than chaotic or disorganized.
The visual qualities of color in interior designing can also translate well into the texture. Warm colors and homely textures, wood finishes and wools, can transform a bland common room into a place of comfort. Granite, glass, and jet black evoke strength and efficiency.
Certain colors and materials allow you to accentuate what a room or section’s purpose might be. A well-designed coworking space might play with different materials in different rooms depending on what those rooms are meant for.
3. Sound
Sound, both in the way it carries across a room and the way it doesn’t carry between rooms, is important for good creative spaces. While cooperation and socializing are important to help get ideas flowing, every creative worker needs a place to retreat to when working through those ideas.
In other words, we all need our peace and quiet – and we’d all like for our voices to be heard whenever and wherever it matters. A good coworking space will have private rooms that help dull the noises of the outside world for concentrated work, as well as meeting rooms with good acoustic qualities for both in-person and remote meetings.
4. Choice
As we’ve mentioned in both sound, lighting, and color, an important quality that remains key in all three is the aspect of choice.
There are times where a minimalist design is important to not distract from the ideas in one’s head. There are times when more color, comfort, and sound are appreciated, and when the cooperative benefits of working around a group of different professionals really shine through.
Being able to choose when you need peace and quiet, and choose when you want to be around others, is one of the strong suits of a creative coworking space.
Why Coworking?
At the end of the day, coworking spaces offer a better work environment for creative individuals because of their open design, free choice, and varied tenants.