Co-working spaces are becoming more and more popular among young entrepreneurs. They are the perfect way to stay in contact with other people who share the same mentality, and also to cut the initial cost if you are starting your own business.
One of the most important ingredients that creates a successful co-working spaces is to have an attractive innovative interior design. it will make your space different from the conventional offices with the working cubicles and dull concept. Moreover, it should offer a good combination of flexibility, practicality and coziness. If you’re planning to go for this business, keep on reading.
In this article, we’ll explain how to design the perfect co-working space step-by-step to make it appealing to your customers.
Co-working Spaces are places where people can work, meet, or learn. So you have to consider the basic needs for this purposes like the lighting systems, the different kind of tables, and the comfortable office chairs where people can spend much time without getting tired. It’s really essential to have a plenty of windows so that people can work in natural light.
It’s also important to have a storage units, such as shelves or filing cabinets to keep the important staff safe and to be able to leave their staff without the need to carry them on a daily basis. Although people are using less and less papers today, they will sometimes need to use printers, scanners, and other stationary that should be provided at you space.
Away of the physical space you have to think about the services you will provide to make profit. Here is the most appealing services: Co-working Slots, Meeting & Training Rooms, community development programs, consultation. We will write another article about each services and how to provide the best user experience for your customers.
The Co-working area: the heart and the most important part of any co-working space where the customers will get the first impression. This area should be the interface of your services. You have to consider the privacy of co-workers to be able to work and increase their productivity, while maintaining the engagement spirit with other co-workers in the shared area.
Meeting rooms: basically, meeting rooms can be used by people who are working in the co-working area but need more privacy to focus or have an online meeting for instance. But it can be used also by other companies that need to meet with their employees. We recommend to have desks with the same size so that you choose different layouts for your meeting rooms like (Round Table style, U shape, or row style) but if you have a bigger space you can also use a big table surrounded by chairs. And it’s essential to have all the facilities that customer may need like air conditioning, projectors, interactive boards. Etc.)
On the other hand, it’s necessary to provide communication areas where people will be able to engage with each other’s and find a potential collaboration. The best way to do that is to run a networking events or providing business card exchange mechanism that facilitate the process.
Break Area: It should be equipped with a coffee machine, drinks, and healthy snacks to keep people focusing and won’t need to leave your space
Rest Room: it’s a place where people can have a break for making calls, playing games, or even doing nothing. It’s really nice to have it at your space and it may become a source of revenue stream in some cases.
You should also provide some amenities like parking slots, clean bathrooms and smoking area. The spaces you will need is basically depending on what the customers need and how they are working. For instance students’ needs are really different from entrepreneurs needs.
So let’s expose the four main concepts that will contribute to make your well-designed co-working space.
1- Pretty & Practical:
Aesthetic value is pointless if it doesn’t do the job. Create an eye-catching first impression with a well-lit, uncluttered office layout design. For instance, keep things clean and mess-free with lockers.
2- Light up the darkness:
As with any working space, lighting is an essential way to provide a conducive workplace. If you can’t provide a desk lamp for each co-working slot, then the spot lights, hanging or standing lights are excellent alternatives that will bring some illumination into the space.
3- Go Green:
Humans are naturally drawn to nature and life in general. Inject some greenery. Artificial grass can help give the illusion of being closer to nature without the mess it often comes with.
4- No theme, No life:
You should use a theme reflecting your identity and there are a lot of designing themes like industrial, modern, art delight, and many others. Pick a theme that match your vision and your potential customers. The more investment in the spirit the more retention rate you will get.
Now you got a brief about the main features and characteristics you need to have in your co-working space, all you need to do is put them into action. Our advice is to plan your office space carefully before getting started.
written by: Merna Magdy
Administration team