Abstract
The gig economy and novel technologies are bringing about new ways of working, living, and socialising that are changing common habits in the design, management, and use of space. The built environment is required to be increasingly flexible, which determines a phenomenon of ‘hybridisation’, meaning the co-presence and co-existence of multiple functions, users, and building types. This trend generates original types of spaces and calls for a new understanding of the landscape of work to support the creation of modern facilities. Due to the relative novelty and complexity of such a dynamic, an overarching interpretation and comprehensive classification of hybrid spaces are still missing. This chapter proposes a systematic reflection on what determines hybrid spaces. Given its intrinsic flexibility, the coworking industry represents a privileged environment for studying hybridisation, offering the opportunity to delve into multiple stakeholders, complex managerial mechanisms, and different uses.
Starting from seminal definitions of coworking spaces and of hybridisation, this chapter deconstructs the concept of ‘hybrid’ in multiple elements and applies them to a set of examples from Italy, the UK, and the USA. This contribution advances the concept of coworking space to include hybrid trends, thus expanding the existing taxonomy of new working spaces.
Keywords
- Workplaces
- Hybridisation
- Hybrid spaces
- Coworking
- Flexibility
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options
Notes
- 1.
Info is available at http://hybridspacelab.net/project/hybrid-urbanism/. Accessed: 17th March 2020.
- 2.
Info is available at http://www.newurbanbody.it/. Accessed: 17th March 2020.
References
Allen, T. J. G., & Henn, G. (2006). The organization architecture of innovation: Managing the flow of technology. Oxford, United Kingdom: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Bishop, P. (2012). The temporary city. London: Routledge.
Brown, J. (2017, April 24). Curating the ‘Third Place’? Coworking and the mediation of creativity. Geoforum, 82, 112–126. Retrieved from http://orca.cf.ac.uk/105914/
Cardinali, M. G. (2018). Retail ibrido. Milano: Egea Publishing.
Cece, P. (2019, March 19). Living, learning, and working with Pirro Cece of Class & Co. Croissant Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.getcroissant.com/blog/2019/2/18/living-learning-and-working-with-pirro-cece-of-class-and-co
Clark, A. (2016, February 21). Libreria bookshop: Where literature and lattes don’t mix. An interview with Rohan Silva. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/21/libreria-bookshop-rohan-silva-second-home-interview
Colombo, A. (2020, May 13). Quando lo spazio è (era?) ibrido. Il Giornale dell’Architettura. Retrieved from https://ilgiornaledellarchitettura.com/web/2020/05/13/quando-lo-spazio-e-era-ibrido/
Dale, K., & Burrell, G. (2008). The spaces of organisation & the organisation of space. Power, identity & materiality at work. New York: Palgrave Publishing.
Deskmag. (2019, May 22). The 2019 global coworking survey. Deskmag. Retrieved from http://www.deskmag.com/en/2019-global-coworking-survey-market-reserach-study
Di Marino, M., & Lapintie, K. (2015). Libraries as transitory workspaces and spatial incubators. Library & Information Science Research, 37(2), 118–129.
Fernàndez Per, A., Mozas, J., & Arpa, J. (2014). This is hybrid. An analysis of mixed-use buildings. Alava: A+t Architecture Publisher.
Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class: And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. New York: Basics Books.
Foucault, M., & Miskowiec, J. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22–27.
Friedman, G. (2014). Workers without employers: Shadow corporations and the rise of the gig economy. Review of Keynesian Economics, 2(2), 171–188.
Furnari, S. (2014). Interstitial spaces: Microinteraction settings and the genesis of new practices between institutional fields. Academy of Management Review, 39(4), 439–462.
Gandini, A. (2015). The rise of coworking spaces: A literature review. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 15(1), 193–205.
Garrett, L., Spreitzer, G., & Bacevice, P. (2017). Co-constructing a sense of community at work: The emergence of community in coworking spaces. Organization Studies, 38(6), 821–842.
Harris, E. (2017). Navigating pop-up geographies: Urban space – Times of flexibility, interstitiality and immersion. Geography Compass, 9(11), 592–603.
Harris, E. (2018). Crafted places/places for craft: Pop-up and the politics of the “crafted” city. In S. Luckman & N. Thomas (Eds.), Craft economies. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Ivaldi, S., & Scaratti, G. (2019). Coworking hybrid activities between plural objects and sharing thickness. TPM, 26(1), 121–147.
Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great American cities. New York: Random House.
Jamal, A. (2018). Coworking spaces in mid-sized cities: A partner in downtown economic development. Journal of Economy and Space – Environment and Planning A, 50(4), 773–788.
Kellogg, K. C. (2009). Operating room: Relational spaces and microinstitutional change in surgery. American Journal of Sociology, 115(3), 657–711.
Kingma, F. S. (2016). The constitution of ‘third workspaces’ in between the home and the corporate office. New Technology, Work and Employment, 31(2), 176–193.
Krasilnikova, E., & Klimov, D. (2016). The main design principles of hybrid spaces in terms of the urban planning regeneration. RUDN Journal of Agronomy and Animal Industries, 4(1), 63–73.
Madanipour, A. (2017). Cities in time: Temporary urbanism and the future of the city. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Marchegiani, L., & Arcese, G. (2018). Collaborative spaces and coworking as hybrid workspaces: Friends or foes of learning and innovation? In P. Boccardelli, M. C. Annosi, F. Brunetta, & M. Magnusson (Eds.), Learning and innovation in hybrid organizations. Strategic and organizational insights (pp. 51–71). Cham: Springer.
Mélypataki, G. (2020). Dematerialisation of workplace in non-classical labour law relations. Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta Novi Sad, 2019(2), 657–668.
Merkel, J. (2015). Coworking in the city. Ephemera Theory & Politics in Organization, 15(1), 121–139.
Merkel, J. (2019). ‘Freelance isn’t free’. Co-working as a critical urban practice to cope with infor- mality in creative labour markets. Urban Studies, 56, 526–547.
Moriset, B. (2014, January 23). Building new places of the creative economy. The rise of coworking spaces. HAL Archives Ouvertes. Retrieved from https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00914075
Morisson, A. (2018). A typology of places in the knowledge economy: Towards the fourth place, international symposium on new metropolitan perspectives. Cham: Springer.
O’Mara, M. (1999). Strategy and place. Managing corporate real estate and facilities for competitive advantage. New York: The Free Press.
Oldenburg, R. (1997). The great good place: Cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons and other hangouts at the heart of the community. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.
Oldenburg, R. (2001). Celebrating the third place: Inspiring stories about the “great good places” at the heart of our communities. New York: Marlowe & Company.
Orel, M., & Alonso-Almeida, M. D. M. (2019). The ambience of collaboration in coworking environments. Journal of Corporate Real Estate. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-12-2018-0050.
Pais, I. (2012). La rete che lavora. Mestieri e professioni nell’era digitale. Milano: Egea Publishing.
Ross, P., & Ressia, S. (2015). Neither office nor home: Coworking as an emerging working choice. Employment Relations Records, 15(1), 42–57.
Scapolan, A. C., Montanari, F., Leone, L., Razzoli, D., Rinaldini, M., & Rodighiero, S. (2020). Gli spazi di lavoro negli hub creativi. Una ricerca esplorativa. Sviluppo & Organizzazione, 291(1).
Schmidt, S. (2019). In the making: Open creative labs as an emerging topic in economic geography? In Geography compass. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/gec3.12463.
Schmidt, S., Brinks, V., & Brinkhoff, S. (2014). Innovation and creativity labs in Berlin: Organizing temporary spatial configurations for innovations. Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie, 58(1), 232–247.
Schreiber, C., & Treggiden, K. (2015). Makers of East London. London: Hoxton Mini Press.
Scullica, F., & Elgani, E. (2019). Living, working and travelling. New processes of hybridization for the spaces of hospitality and work. Milano: Franco Angeli.
Simões Aelbrecht, P. (2016). ‘Fourth places’: The contemporary public settings for informal social interaction among strangers. Journal of Urban Design, 21(1), 124–152.
Souza, D., & Silva, A. (2006). From cyber to hybrid: Mobile technologies as interfaces of hybrid spaces. Journal of Space and Culture, 9(3), 261–278.
Spinuzzi, C. (2012). Working alone together: Coworking as emergent collaborative activity. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 26(4), 400–441.
Spinuzzi, C., Bodrožić, Z., Scaratti, G., & Ivaldi, S. (2019). “Coworking is about community”: but what is “community” in coworking?. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 33(2), 112–140.
Star, S. L. (2010). This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept. Science, Technology & Human Values, 35(5), 601–617.
Turner, V. W. (1969). The ritual process. Structure and anti-structure. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Uda, T. (2013). What is coworking? A theoretical study on the concept of coworking (Discussion Paper, Series A) (Vol. 265, pp. 1–15). Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration, Hokkaido University.
Vuokko, I., Kojo, I., & Nenonen, S. (2015). Places for multi-locational work – Opportunities for facilities management. Facilities, 33(2), 20–37.
Willis, K. S., & Aurigi, A. (2011). Hybrid spaces: Presence, rhythms and performativity. In Conference: Intelligent Environments. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224264981_Hybrid_Spaces_Presence_Rhythms_and_Performativity
Yang, E., Bisson, C., & Sanborn, B. E. (2019). Coworking space as a third-fourth place: Changing models of a hybrid space in corporate real estate. Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 4(3), 324–345.
Yström, A., & Agogué, M. (2020). Exploring practices in collaborative innovation: Unpacking dynamics, relations, and enactment in in-between spaces. Creativity Innovation Management, 29(1), 41–145.
List of Websites
Burò at BASE Milano. https://base.milano.it/; https://base.milano.it/en/about/
Class&Co. https://www.classandco.com/
Eat Work Art Netil House. https://eatworkart.com/netil-house
Italian Coworking. (2019, December 30). I numeri del coworking in Italia. Retrieved from https://www.italiancoworking.it/i-numeri-del-coworking-in-italia/
New Women Space. https://www.newwomenspace.com/company, https://coworkinginsights.com/new-women-space-where-serving-the-community-meets-business/, https://liquidspace.com/us/ny/brooklyn/new-women-space, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/newwomenspace/new-women-space
Second Home Spitalfields. https://secondhome.io/location/spitalfields/
Acknowledgements
Most data for this book chapter have been collected thanks to the Short-Term Scientific Mission grant period that two of the authors won, supported by the COST Action CA18214 European Project – The Geography of New Working Spaces and the Impact on the Periphery (2019–2023). Previous efforts conducted by other CA18214 members through italiancoworking.com, FARB project by DAStU-POLIMI, FAB Foundation, Make in Italy, and Google Maps offered great support for data elaboration.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Migliore, A., Ceinar, I.M., Tagliaro, C. (2021). Beyond Coworking: From Flexible to Hybrid Spaces. In: Orel, M., Dvouletý, O., Ratten, V. (eds) The Flexible Workplace. Human Resource Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62167-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62167-4_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-62166-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-62167-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)