Soho House launches co-working spaces for creative industries

I’m sure not everyone gets quite as excited about good interior design as I do, but there is definitely something about the space you work in that affects the way you work. I spent a very production afternoon working at one of the many hot desks and really enjoyed the design of the space from both an aesthetic and a functional viewpoint.” The way people work is changing, and their expectations of a workspace are changing,” says director of Soho Works Tanya Nathan, who is behind the interior design.

The venture came about as a result of the sheer number of Soho House members who use the private members’ clubs as informal working space. “We see the way people use our clubs, day in day out,” says Tanya. “We’ve got 58,000 members, so you get to understand people’s habits. Our members work in the creative industries, and Soho Works is an extension of Soho House, the difference being that Soho Works is a dedicated workspace. It’s got all the Soho House comforts and all the Soho House hospitality – we’ve just created a work space that makes it easy to get work done. We’ve got all the typical office equipment, but in an environment brought to you from Soho House.”

Located adjacent to Shoreditch House (with connecting card-entry doors for members of both), in east London’s iconic Tea Building, the first iteration of the concept will be quickly followed by outposts in LA, Istanbul and, in 2017, Clerkenwell. At 16,500 square feet, this first space will be the smallest.

Tanya visited every type of working space in her research for Soho Works to find out what works and what could be improved on. Just as with Soho House, she’s keen that each space is unique and yet familiar – and conceived in response to its environment whether that’s an old tea warehouse in London or the historic townhouses with gardens in Istanbul. “We don’t want them to be carbon copies of each other,” says Tanya. ” We want to keep the integrity so it’s familiar when people arrive, but equally, I’m constantly pushing to change it up a bit, so people get excited about coming to work.” All the interior design is done in-house and furnishings are a mixture of bespoke and vintage.

The London site will provide a blueprint for the facilities offered at each of the Soho Works locations, which include break-out spaces, meeting rooms (some standing) with cork boards and rolls of brown paper, standard office printers plus plotter printers for large scale printing, a workshop for laminating, binding, prototyping, and storing samples, a 24-hour concierge, a subsidised cafe, showers, water fountains, a domestic-style kitchen, sound-proof phone booths for private calls, a library, and a photography studio for simple shoots. “From a design point of view, we’re learning all the time about the functionality of this space, and how that dictates the design,” says Tanya, who will oversee design for all future Soho Works spaces.

There are three types of membership – hot desking (available by the day with guaranteed space for Soho House members) with lockers; a shared permanent desk – often supplemented with hot desking for companies whose size changes in response to workload; and private offices, which start as small as one desk. Private offices are enclosed by bespoke Crittal-style partitions and are furnished with a few homely touches such as coat stands and shelves and black-coated chairs exclusive to Soho Works and sit-stand desks, both by Humanscale. “Generally workspace furniture is so awful to look at,” says Tanya, “With Humanscale we had something that looked nice, and then we sat in the chairs – and the decision was made. The product just speaks for itself.”

Soho Works is open 24 hours a day and is used round the clock. “People are working late – and hats off to them,” says Tanya. “I’ve been really impressed by the diligence of the start-ups who work here.” A programme of members-only events provides support for emerging businesses and a sense of community within the space.

I had a really productive afternoon working there and felt both the sense of creative community and the sense of interior design doing its job – both functionally, but also in creating the right atmosphere. True to Tanya’s aim, I was excited to be working there. I can’t wait to see the Istanbul and LA spaces!