The Co-Workplace: Teleworking in the Neighbourhood

Thanks to telecommunications breakthroughs, almost half of all jobs in North America and Europe could today be performed away from a traditional office. Millions of office workers are already working from home, and while some appreciate the flexibility of home-based telework, others find that they are bound to their employers by an electronic leash. This book explores the co-workplace - a new type of neighbourhood-based facility offering the benefits of remote work while maintaining boundaries between workplace and home. Borrowing from the experience of cooperative artists’ studios, business incubators, and the corner copy shop, the new co-workplace would be planned by the people who would really use it. It would be close to home with access to such amenities as meeting rooms, child care, food services, and recreation facilities. It would combine the infrastructure of a good corporate office with the healthy convenience of walking to work. In The Co-Workplace, Laura Johnson draws lessons from spaces used collaboratively by software developers, artists, lawyers, and other professionals. This book tackles one of the central policy and planning issues of our time and, as such, will be vital reading for those in urban planning, communications, work and leisure studies, and women’s studies.