Business & Industry > Working in Germany : A Desk, a Laptop, a Mobile: Shared Offices are Creative Industry Hothouses

Working In Germany: Freelancers are pooling up resources to share office space

A Desk, a Laptop, a Mobile: Shared Offices are Creative Industry Hothouses

August 04, 2009

Coworking is all the trend. Graphic designers, journalists, architects all work alone and in a team, on large or small storeys of converted factory buildings. What they save is money. What they gain is networks. What they learn is creative management.

When Sascha (aged 33) opens the door to his office at noon, Anne (37), Lilly (28), Jaques (31) and Sylvia (42) are already sitting there. Lilly begins her day at 6 a.m., and Sascha is always the last to arrive. The converted apartment in an old building shared by the product designer, illustrator, editor, translator and film script writer, measures just 40m2. “I pay 100 euro per month in rent here, and that’s right in the middle of Prenzlauer Berg.” Sascha joined the private workspace-sharing arrangement in Kopenhagener Strasse just a few weeks ago. He had worked by himself at home for long enough. “Here I have something like colleagues. We exchange ideas, help each other out and network. We are not competitors, we are all just creative.” Sascha puts his laptop on his desk and places his mobile next to it. Before doing anything else, he goes into the kitchenette to make coffee for everyone.

“Actually, it was a temporary solution”

The idea of shared offices is growing and thriving in Germany’s big cities. Large storeys of converted factories where freelancers and self-employed people can book an appropriate monthly tariff for an office are becoming increasingly popular. One of Berlin’s first open-plan shared offices was the Goldleistenfabrik, a converted factory in Berlin-Weissensee. Spread over two storeys, it has rooms large and small, with just one or several workplaces, available at reasonable prices. Fabian Tacke, Chairman of the St.ART – studios for artists association that operates the shared offices at Goldleistenfabrik recalls how it all began: “For ten years, our association has aimed to improve and promote Berlin’s cultural infrastructure. That is why we provide buildings and workplaces. For many people in the creative sector it has always been the questions of finance and social isolation that motivate them to leave their home office and share workspace. If creative types had better prospects of finding permanent jobs, the trend toward sharing offices would definitely decline again. It is actually a temporary solution.”

Pool of creative types

Fortunately, creative types know how to deal with this temporary solution. Again and again, joint ideas are generated when they share coffee, a table and a laptop. HUB Berlin has become a hothouse of outstanding collective creativity. The extended third storey in portal I of Kreuzberg’s Elisabeth Höfe is a motley and lively network operated by the selfEG (Social Entrepreneur and Leadership Foundation). Wiebke Koche, Managing Director of selfEG Deutschland, experiences every day how the virtue of joint creativity stems from the workspace infrastructure shortage. When HUB Berlin, the first branch, opened in the capital in early 2008, just a few freelance entrepreneurs met on a storey of a converted factory close to the Landwehr Canal.

Now, just 18 months on, between 40 and 60 freelancers from all sectors sit there every day and develop joint project ideas. They can discuss business models while cooking and attend high-profile lectures at a weekly lunch. “Many people come to Berlin because they see that something is going on here, that there are possibilities here. Countless creative start-ups are founded in Berlin every day. What happens in shared large open-space offices such as HUB is that all these creative entrepreneurs come together. Our task as a shared workspace provider is to inspire innately creative freelancers to think and act as entrepreneurs,” is how Wiebke Koch explains the Hub global community’s model for success.

Fun in the creative industries

Shared offices, regardless of whether they are private, located in a factory with separate rooms or open-plan covering a whole storey, fit in with the times and with creative business. Thinking and working at shared workplaces brings outlines, ideas and projects back onto peoples’ desk desks from their private drawers at home. Joint ideas by creative networks enrich cities’ townscapes, marketing and flair. And quite apart from that, many of the ideas plug gaps in the creative and social sectors, making life in Germany more attractive, more interesting and more innovative.

Wiebke Koch of selfHUB hopes that open-plan offices will beam throughout Germany like satellites, promoting fun in the creative industries. Fabian Tacke of the St.ART association calls on companies to finally give experts from the art and culture sector permanent jobs, providing professional work with a professional infrastructure. And product designer Sascha? At 7 p.m. he quickly waters the flowering plant on Lilly’s desk, takes his laptop and mobile and switches off the light. Tomorrow life goes on – in Germany’s many shared offices.

by Kerstin Müller. She is a freelance journalist and writer. She lives in Berlin.