The Report “COWORKING IN MILAN – from the pandemic to the city in 15 minutes”, a research on the evolution of coworking in Milan during the Covid-19 crisis realized by Collaboriamo Aps, UNiCatt, DAStU Politecnico di Milano – and promoted by the Municipality of Milan, is now online.
Techinnova also offered a valuable contribution to the survey, appearing in the Report among the coworking that participated in the co-design sessions.
The report Coworking in Milan. From the pandemic to the city in 15 minutes is organized in three sections.
In the first, realized by DAStU-Politecnico di Milano, the geography of work and work spaces is analyzed. The hypothesis guiding the analysis is that suburban and peripheral areas can become more attractive places in which to live and work. The survey analyzes the location of coworking spaces in order to identify: the main agglomerations and localization dynamics in the period 2014-2021; the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they are located; the accessibility basin (15 minutes walking and cycling) of coworking spaces; and the suburban neighborhoods where new coworking neighborhoods could be hosted. The survey is accompanied by an analysis of telephone traffic of TIM users, which allows us to compare the mobility relations between the Milanese neighborhoods before and during the Covid-19 pandemic – with the ultimate goal of identifying the potential user base for new proximity coworking.
The second survey, carried out by TRAILab-Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, analyzes the experiences of coworking spaces during the pandemic emergency and the opinions of coworking managers with respect to development directions. The survey was carried out through interviews with the managers of 87 coworking spaces – out of a total of 127 spaces identified in the Milan area. The survey highlights five main trends: proximity coworking, employees as new coworkers, coworking companies, the demand for flexibility and the relationship between physical and digital space. Finally, it highlights the differences between small and large spaces and between coworking as a primary and secondary activity.
The third survey, carried out by Collaboriamo, looks to the future: through a co-design process carried out with coworking spaces (including the coworking space of the Techinnova incubator), the profile of four types of coworking in the neighborhood is outlined: coworking as a training and learning center, coworking platform, widespread coworking and coworking living lab. The models analyzed have some traits in common: openness, co-creation, digital, activism, collaboration and hybridization. For each model of neighborhood coworking are identified: services offered, characteristics of the staff, actors with whom it enters in relation, mode of membership, organization of space and time, costs / revenues. The report concludes with an analysis of inter-organizational collaborations between coworking spaces, in the perspective of creating a city network.
Where they are, how they are organized, in which directions they are moving: the three reports offer an integrated perspective on the present and possible futures of coworking in Milan. The key words, which recur throughout the Report, are: polycentrism, proximity and hybridization.
The complete Report at the link: https://collaboriamo.org/media/2021/07/Coworking_a_Milano.pdf.