Boston – Incubator. Shared work-zones. Open office space. Flexible work environments. These are the buzzwords of the new workplace. One of the top cities for entrepreneurs, Boston is rapidly embracing a fresh paradigm for nurturing new businesses, one that has strong design and social implications. Well known is the Cambridge Innovation Center, one of the early projects to bring together startup companies in the technology sector, creating a synergy where individual groups can share experience, expertise and grow together. Essential to the incubator space, the common kitchen and meeting areas provide opportunities for busy individuals to cross paths and exchange ideas. Importantly, such projects allow startups to spread costs, lightening the initial burden of starting a new venture and providing an easier path to financial success.
The tech innovation incubator concept has grown to encompass shared lab space, where budding pharmaceutical companies can further their work without incurring huge costs. Companies that start at the Innovation Center may move into such spaces, located at the heart of the Kendall Square technology area. At Lab, we have worked with local real estate companies to develop master plans for converting some of their portfolios to incubator laboratories- where startup tech and pharmaceutical companies can take on bench space without incurring large bricks and mortar risk, and instead focus their energy on developing their ideas. As Mark Reed, AIA, a principal at Lab/ Life. Science. Architecture, notes there are drawbacks and benefits. “It is harder to protect intellectual property and the cost per square foot is relatively high,” he notes. “But the benefit is that you can control the amount of area you take on in an incremental basis as well as gaining access to expensive equipment and gasses essential to the industry, lowering startup costs for a new company.”
The multi-tenant workspace is not limited to the technology sector, but has grown to embrace both what is termed the “creative economy,” as well as professionals such as lawyers and brokers. Recognizing the importance of design to the local economy, Boston and the state of Massachusetts have publicly committed to nurturing the creative professionals in the area. From Menino’s Innovation District to Massachusetts’ Creative Industries Initiative, the region is seeing a strong commitment to an important sector of the local economy. One that strives on innovation and the churn of new businesses, the creative sector has also spawned incubator workspaces dedicated to the industry. Recently featured on NPR, the Fringe in Union Square is just such a space, with sixteen young businesses, from digital design to green roof construction combining resources and ideas.
Centers catering to professionals – whether in creative occupations such as digital design or in law have been increasing in Boston. According to John Strachan, co-founder of E-Space, a new center in Charlestown, the focus is to provide “an efficiency of shared, well functioning space where people can work and share ideas.” Working on a month-by-month lease, members of this type of center can monitor their needs, rent additional space while taking advantage of shared resources such as conference rooms and kitchen areas. At E-Space, interaction is encouraged. With views to the city, the open workspace at E-Space joins to offices with sliding glass doors and brightly colored walls. A diverse and well designed incubator space can provide a fabulous environment for growth. Businesses have become more virtual, Strachan notes, allowing a new company to occupy a single office, cell phones and computers. What used to require rooms full of files and data, now requires only a desk, thus facilitating entrepreneurs to break out and join innovative working environments.
The opportunity to work on these types of projects is to assist in the development of an exciting new type of work space, one that preferences connection and interaction over separation and singularity. While preserving and encouraging the individual, the new workspace assists people in connecting and sharing ideas professionally within our increasingly virtualized world.
The tech innovation incubator concept has grown to encompass shared lab space, where budding pharmaceutical companies can further their work without incurring huge costs. Companies that start at the Innovation Center may move into such spaces, located at the heart of the Kendall Square technology area. At Lab, we have worked with local real estate companies to develop master plans for converting some of their portfolios to incubator laboratories- where startup tech and pharmaceutical companies can take on bench space without incurring large bricks and mortar risk, and instead focus their energy on developing their ideas. As Mark Reed, AIA, a principal at Lab/ Life. Science. Architecture, notes there are drawbacks and benefits. “It is harder to protect intellectual property and the cost per square foot is relatively high,” he notes. “But the benefit is that you can control the amount of area you take on in an incremental basis as well as gaining access to expensive equipment and gasses essential to the industry, lowering startup costs for a new company.”
The multi-tenant workspace is not limited to the technology sector, but has grown to embrace both what is termed the “creative economy,” as well as professionals such as lawyers and brokers. Recognizing the importance of design to the local economy, Boston and the state of Massachusetts have publicly committed to nurturing the creative professionals in the area. From Menino’s Innovation District to Massachusetts’ Creative Industries Initiative, the region is seeing a strong commitment to an important sector of the local economy. One that strives on innovation and the churn of new businesses, the creative sector has also spawned incubator workspaces dedicated to the industry. Recently featured on NPR, the Fringe in Union Square is just such a space, with sixteen young businesses, from digital design to green roof construction combining resources and ideas.
Centers catering to professionals – whether in creative occupations such as digital design or in law have been increasing in Boston. According to John Strachan, co-founder of E-Space, a new center in Charlestown, the focus is to provide “an efficiency of shared, well functioning space where people can work and share ideas.” Working on a month-by-month lease, members of this type of center can monitor their needs, rent additional space while taking advantage of shared resources such as conference rooms and kitchen areas. At E-Space, interaction is encouraged. With views to the city, the open workspace at E-Space joins to offices with sliding glass doors and brightly colored walls. A diverse and well designed incubator space can provide a fabulous environment for growth. Businesses have become more virtual, Strachan notes, allowing a new company to occupy a single office, cell phones and computers. What used to require rooms full of files and data, now requires only a desk, thus facilitating entrepreneurs to break out and join innovative working environments.
The opportunity to work on these types of projects is to assist in the development of an exciting new type of work space, one that preferences connection and interaction over separation and singularity. While preserving and encouraging the individual, the new workspace assists people in connecting and sharing ideas professionally within our increasingly virtualized world.
Stephanie Goldberg, AIA LEED BC+D is President of LAB/Life. Science. Architecture, Inc., a Boston-based laboratory architecture firm.