Women make up a majority of those who start their own businesses, so it was a matter of time before that trend intersected with the coworking movement. It also helps to know that top women business builders are looking for creative and affordable environs.

Thus, we have In Good Company (IGC), an affordable/high-value coworking space in the creative capital of Manhattan (Flatiron district) - for women only. It has all the amenities you’d expect in a coworking site, like a conference room, open plan workspaces and wi-fi, priced very attainably from $300/year to $375/month for a workspace. However, meeting room and conference room access are $20/$50 hour respectively, though perhaps that would cut down on the productivity-killing habit of relying on too many meetings

Some of the features that are perhaps more oriented to women:
- IGC’s many ongoing events don’t necessarily cater to women per se (outside of the bi-monthly mom/business owner lunch), but they’re presented by successful women in business.
- Effective spaces for casual, more intimate conversation are provided, from small meeting rooms to a welcoming lounge area.
- IGC emphasizes a supportive structure for building relationships. Cocktail minglers and salon forums allow informal networking, formal bi-monthly business support groups encourage members to share their challenges and achievements, and on-site consulting provides targeted assistance.

Comment below if you’re interested in starting up a women’s coworking space in your city.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what about a video explaining what coworking means to creatives? There really wasn’t any until this one came along, produced by none other than the pioneers of one of the first coworking sites in the country, the Affinity Lab in Adams Morgan, Washington DC.

Founded in 2001, the ‘Lab’ is peaking right now with a full house of entrepreneurs who rent workspaces full time and part time. They’re also one of the first to establish an online social network to complement the robust face-face interaction. They’ll soon be opening their second coworking site in the H Street district, which will be more than twice the size, and the team is also being commissioned by the City of DC to help establish other coworking sites. As stated a few times before, it’s the happy home of CoolTown Studios. Read a bit about the Lab’s history here.

A question the Affinity Lab owners would like to get your feedback on is, as they open more Labs, would you prefer having unique names for each subsequent coworking site, or using the Affinity Lab name? Vote via the link below.

The previous entry profiled the Architect magazine story, The Next Coffeehouse, and there’s one that truly stood out to me as something that a creative would say, “You know, I’d actually really want to work there.”

Designed by STUDIOS Architecture, their Modular Community Kitchen concept is the spatial inverse of the piazza, with a 60’ communal table serving as the ‘town square’. Greg Keffer, principal, provided some insight in this CoolTown interview:

Do you think the market is ready for the modular community kitchen now?
“Yes, I think people are ready for this and should have no problem adapting just as they have in workplaces. Our concept is based on ideas we originated over the years in workplace design. By looking at shared table type environments vs. typical cubicles you can immediately understand the effect on communication, spontaneity, and curiosity and how that can translate to idea generation, efficiency, and community in work. If STUDIOS has been successful in transforming how people can interact at work, why can’t we apply those same ideas to how people interact in social places such as a cafe?”

What are the modular components of the space?
“There are the functional pieces such as cases for cold beverages and food, then there are more versatile pieces such as peninsula tables that build off the main 60’ long common table.  These create nodes for gathering, or can be a place where someone might find more privacy rather than sitting on the common area.  The concept also allows for the pieces to branch off from the main table and create areas in the space for special settings such as a poetry reading, or community gathering. The table is simply a framework which elements (and people) work organically off of.”

What is the signature element of such a space that identifies it as a coworking cafe?
“This has to be the 60’ long common table.”

Would you work there?
“Of course I would - I embrace the ideas of community and sharing of ideas - this is an exciting point of view to how [the modern coffeehouse] could become truly localized.”

On an island near Shanghai, China formed by the accumulation of, silt shared with a protected bird habitat, will rise a city that is free of greenhouse gas emissions and gas-powered vehicles with an emphasis on energy-efficient design, waste reduction strategies, and renewable energy.

Dongtan, a 21,250-acre eco city, is being developed by Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation as a leading example of green development in China.

Transportation
- All vehicles within the city will be powered by battery or fuel cell.
- Visitors will park their automobiles outside the city.
- All housing is to be placed no farther than a seven-minute walk from public transportation
- Most residents are expected to work in Dongtan.
- Bicycle paths, pedestrian routes, a tram system, hydrogen fuel-cell buses, and water taxis will provide alternative forms of transportation.

Energy
- Up to 90% of all waste will be recovered.
- A combined heat and power plant will run on biomass, including municipal solid waste and sewage and rice husks left over from area rice mills.
- Wind farms and buildings with their own photovoltaic cells and micro-wind turbines will provide additional energy.

- Food will be provided by high-yield production using waste heat and the carbon of the biomass for energy generation systems.

The population is expected to reach 5,000 by 2010, 80,000 by 2020, and a half million by 2050, in the form of three compact villages.

Every major city nowadays has a coworking space, but what about a coworking district? That's the plan with the nascent Adams Morgan Works program.

With 30 million people and counting working at home as we transition to a knowledge-based economy, coffeehouses and coworking sites are becoming increasingly popular, most of which thrive in natural cultural districts. Thus in Adams Morgan, Washington DC's preeminent natural cultural district, a movement is underway to transform a rather dead day scene into one as vibrant and active as the central business district.

Given evidence of a dayworking population of customers via beta communities, Adams Morgan merchants will agree to open their businesses during the day based on the beta community's needs. The neighborhood will benefit from a virtual dayworking community that is manifested in the physical world by the area's existing and crowdsourced coffeehouses, cafes and restaurants, spurred by dayworking happy hours and work events around like-minded work circles.

Check out the targeted Adams Morgan dayworking vibe in this Affinity Lab-produced video.

Multiple coworking spaces opening in same cities

Not only are coworking spaces (shared open-plan entrepreneurial workplaces) fast becoming a standard office model in every city, but they're starting to multiply.

San Francisco has at least four, one of the most recent being the largish (4500 s.f.) downtown Sandbox Suites (pictured above). Meanwhile, Seattle has several, the latest being GiraffeLabs (pictured to the right).

That doesn't mean quantity trumps quality, as a single coworking space found out the hard way in the small town of Wassau, WI when it closed. The reason? Lack of focus on building community. As its founder lamented on the Community Coworking Blog, "Had I had more time to do it all over again, I would have first focused on building up the local web community. Getting a group of like-minded people together takes time - especially in a smaller market like Wausau. My good friend Alex says all the time - community, community, community! I suspect that'll be the way I do it next time."

Image source: Sandbox Suites by deusx.

Adams Morgan, the preeminent natural cultural district of Washington DC, has no problem attracting nightlife whatsoever, especially on the weekends when you'll have difficulty walking down the sidewalks that are packed with pedestrians.

However, weekdays during the day are another story, when only a tiny fraction of the restaurants are even open and pedestrians are sparse. The picture above isn't a normal day (taken during the annual Adams Morgan Day festival), though that's what it could be if the region's share of the 30 million people working at home decided to crowdsource a hundred closed-during-the-day businesses into a contemporary information economy workplace district.

That's what the newly established Adams Morgan Works crowdsourcing program is for, to follow the lead set by the highly successful Tryst coffeehouse, The (24-hour) Diner and coworking Affinity Lab and establish the customer base for the openings of several more daytime workplace venues. Initiated by CoolTown Beta Communities, Think Local First and Salon Contra, if you live in the area, become one of the founding members by joining its crowdsourcing groupsite here. You can get the vibe for the nascent entrepreneurial business community in this video.

The first project at hand is helping a modern Euro-style restaurant transition to being open during the work day - can it be done? Will they provide a more affordable daytime menu? You'll determine its success as you score points for your contributions and earn rewards. The first meeting? A happy hour with sponsored entertainment and food of course, but you have to be registered on the groupsite to get an invite!

A live-cowork site in San Fran

You've heard of live-work units where owners either live about their workplace or have extra room to work in their living space. However, how about a live-cowork space? That's the Hat Factory in San Francisco.

In the evenings the Hat Factory (word on the street was that a former tenant made hats there) is home to three tech-oriented workers, but during business hours they open it up to about seven other untethered workers. As you can see, it has a much more lived-in feel than most coworking spaces, and that's its appeal.

You can take a video tour here, and its surrounding neighborhood here, in the Dogpatch and Potrero Hill neighborhoods of Southeast San Francisco.

Read more about the Hat Factory and other coworking sites in this NY Times article.

The continued rise of the home office

We hear a lot of buzz about the popularity of people working at home, but how prevalent is it? Here's a snapshot via answering a few questions:

How many U.S. Americans are working at home? 28 million at least part time in 2006.
Is that number growing? That's a 10% increase from the previous year and a 40% increase from 2002.
Do U.S. Americans have home offices? 7 out of 10 have offices or designated work stations, a 112% increases since 2000.
How important are home offices in new homes? Fourth, after security.

For sources to these findings, check out the NY Times article, The Office, Housebroken. Apartment dwellers should peruse the profile of Alessandra Gouldner's 2.5 x 4 foot workspace.

Sarah Susanka, author of the wildly popular Not So Big House series of interior design books, observes that many people often prefer working in nooks and spontaneous spaces (see all three photos) rather than in assigned rooms. The NY Times article also looks at the opposite spectrum, albeit those with a a much larger budget and need for status, thus fueling home office sections in retail stores.

The 'creative treehouse'

If you're looking for an affordable, creative place to work or hang out, you're in luck if you live in Pittsburgh, or more precisely, Bellevue, Pennsylvania, 4.5 miles from downtown Pittsburgh. That's where you'll find the Creative Treehouse; a 7500 s.f. arts-oriented coworking space. The key ingredients? An inexpensive lease in a developing neighborhood.

The membership-structured (starting at a mere $25/month) space features:
- A creative service center that will allow businesses to network with member artists (the coffeehouse/coworking scene, as pictured);
- Multi-purpose facility for public art displays, gatherings and even live music (essentially a large open room);
- Photography studio with darkroom;

Also, members are allowed to:
- Organize events;
- Host and attend workshops and classes;
- Be included in group showings,
- Update their online profile accessible to businesses and other members.

Events include 24-Hour Creative Marathons (e.g. publish a comic book), NY-style dance parties, and collaborative world happenings like the May 10, 2008 Pangea Day where 24 user-created films are shown simultaneously around the globe.

Open since June 30, 2007, the Creative TreeHouse has plans to expand to other cities (undetermined) in the future, which is expected since it fits the MySpace-oriented viral loop model of customer-motivated replication. As owner Jesse Hambley puts it, who founded the Treehouse as a 23 year-old independent photographer, designer and video editor, "It's like MySpace in a building."

Thanks to Christian MacAuley of Fab Apps for the reference!