Spaces opens its 1st PHL co-working space in BGC
INTERNATIONAL Workplace Group (IWG) on Friday opened the first Philippine branch of its new co-working space brand Spaces.
Spaces World Plaza occupies 3,200 square meters (sq.m.) of workspace at World Plaza building along 5th Avenue in Bonifacio Global City.
It features an 815-sq.m. co-working space, as well as individual work stations, meeting pods, offices, and phone booths. It also has an in-house cafe, Little Flour.
“To set up this type of flexible working with such emphasis on co-working and facilities to build a community, we spent 40% more per square meter than if we had done a regular shared office,” Lars Wittig, country manager of Spaces in the Philippines, said in a separate interview with BusinessWorld.
“It’s not just about bringing together millennials with baby boomers… We want to bring all together…This is basically following a global trend of co-working and connecting,” Mr. Wittig added.
Officials said what sets Spaces apart from its competitors is the environment that fosters community building.
“Spaces is a mix of community, so bringing together different industries, different sizes of business, people that had been in the industry for a long time, newcomers… Those people come together because the environment that we create is unique. The design that we put together really attracts both kinds of business,” Margot van der Poel, Spaces brand manager for Asia Pacific, said.
“We wanted to change the way we work… It needs to be more inspirational, it needs to be more social, and it needs to be more productive… It’s about changing the way we work, it’s about design, it’s about the really good coffee, and bringing together people,” Ms. van der Poel added.
There are plans to open another Spaces hub in Makati City this year. The Makati hub will occupy a whole building and will have about 350 workstations, two floors of co-working community area, a cafe, and a parking area.
Spaces was founded in Amsterdam in 2006 and is under the IWG, also the parent company of workplace firm Regus. IWG also owns No18, OpenOffice, Basepoint Business Centers and Signature.
By the end of the year, Spaces would have 200 working spaces in 115 cities, with 45-50 located in Southeast Asia. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang
