research group IADE / UNIDCOM / IDEAS(R)EVOLUTION

Coworking: Open and Informal Design Classroom

It can be said that most of the global discussions on Education establish a common diagnosis: the failure of educational models based on formal learning, disconnected from practice and from digital technologies. Learning Design has, since its inception, a strong practical component, laboratory and experimentation. However, the education models presented today doesn’t seem to alter decisively the social and spatial shape(s) of the classroom. Along with education, work also undergoes profound changes. Its progressive dematerialization generates new kinds of professionals and innovating workspaces – Coworking spaces. Consequently, coworking spaces start to contaminate all aspects of work, learning or leisure. One can now work at home; in public spaces; at different leisure outdoors; and even at school. This poster focus on how higher education in Design can benefit from a coworking approach towards a new classroom.

PHD STUDENT Fernando MendesUNIDCOM / IDEAS(R)EVOLUTIONfernando.mendes@iade.pt

SupervisorCarlos DuarteUNIDCOM / IDEAS(R)EVOLUTIONcarlos.duarte@iade.pt

MAIN RESEARCH LINEDesign

CROSS RESEARCH LINESCoworking

PROJECT STARTING DATE2014

PROJECT CONCLUSION DATE2017

Brad Neuberg coined the term cow-orking in 2005. He was working as a freelancer, working independent-ly, and as a consultant for a compa-ny. Ten years later, it is now obvious that the proliferation of the cowork-ing movement is largely linked to two fundamental reasons: • The ubiquity of technology pro-viding easy and wireless access to the internet;• The profound changes in the way we work (Suarez, 2014).Deskmag is the leading source of information on coworking. They run

every year a Global Coworking Sur-vey. The 2015/2016 results show a positive outlook, evidencing the ongoing expansion of these spac-es (Foertsch, 2016): 10,000 cow-orking spaces will open by the end of the year. Will Coworking Spaces Be The New Classrooms? (Cagnol, 2013). This was the title of an arti-cle published in 2013 by Rémy Cag-nol at the Deskmag website. Cag-nol establishes a natural connection between school and coworking by noting that students are used to working on their assessments at cof-

fee shops, libraries and other public places. A coworking space would be a natural option for them because it would somehow merge their famil-iar spaces like home and school. A coworking environment as a new classroom would allow the students to work and learn with the benefits of regular coworkers. That means working in a comfortable and infor-mal space; work and study when and for as long as they need; get familiar with the local entrepreneur-ship ecosystem; learn by experi-ence and observation from the com-

munity; put theory into practice; and the opportunity to look for internship and even job positions. Knowledge is now open to all and widely availa-ble. We can now customise our ed-ucation or, to be more precise, hack it (Price, 2013, p. 162). This means that it is possible to fully customise one’s education. Everyone can now learn from everyone else. Even the traditional roles are shifting. A teach-er can follow a course proposed by a student, a coworker, an expert or a peer. Coworking spaces are or-ganically open collaborative shared work and learning places, well po-sitioned to respond to a fast grow-ing contingent of the new digital and nomadic students to whom learning is more about a peer-to-peer experi-ence than the traditional classroom. Looking further to what happens at coworking spaces, a preliminary evi-dence is that the non-intentionality of learning is an effective way to learn. Many studies and authors have pro-duced extensive investigation in this field.

RESULTS (expected)More research, within the scope of my doctoral studies, will have to com-pare different dimensions of what is learning in order to fully under-stand the dynamics of this desired new design classroom. Ethnograph-ic, auto-ethnographic (ie from the in-vestigator’s own experience) and cy-ber-ethnographic studies, watching and participating in both physical and online communities of these spaces will prove or deny the relevance of coworking as a new setup for a new design classroom.

REFERENCES

Cagnol, R. (2013). Will Coworking Spaces Be The New Classrooms? DeskMag. Retrieved March 8, 2015, from http://www.deskmag.com/en/will-coworking-spaces-be-the-new-classrooms-university-school-686

Foertsch, C. (2016, January 29). 2016 Coworking Forecast | Deskmag | Cowork-ing. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from http://www.deskmag.com/en/2016-forecast-glob-al-coworking-survey-results/2

Price, D. (2013). Open: How we’ll work, live and learn in the future. England: Crux Publishing Ltd.

Suarez, R. (2014). The Coworking Handbook – The Guide for Owners and Manag-ers. Charleston, SC – USA: Ramon Suarez.

Figure 1. Diversity is key in coworking spaces as we believe it will in future design classrooms.Cai Guo-Qiang. (2013). Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling Back to Earth.