This week we dive into the continued rise and evolution of third spaces and the impact of the built environment on our productivity, health, and prosperity.

Newsletter #28. What do you think of the new name? Let me know your thoughts!

Artifacts is a weekly newsletter exploring the curiosities and intersections of modern business building, identity making, and creative detours.

For those unfamiliar, Switchyards is a “neighborhood work club.”

They have 11 locations across the major neighborhoods in Atlanta. They aren’t a coffee shop as you need a membership and a code to enter; they aren’t quite a co-working space because you can’t rent hot desks or offices – they’re the more interesting middle.

In the last few weeks since I’ve been back in Atlanta, I’ve been able to visit three different Switchyards locations. They all have their own unique flare but a shared essence.

I’ve found it to be calming, productive, inspiring, and just nice to work from Switchyards.

But being the researcher I am, I wondered why Switchyards works so well in Atlanta but doesn’t seem to exist in other major cities.

The average office rental rate in Los Angeles is $51.71 per square foot. In New York, it’s $56.67 per square foot.

In Atlanta, it’s $19.10 per square foot.

Office space in Atlanta is, on average, 3x cheaper than in some of the other coastal urban centers. This is how they can charge $100/month for access to every club and continue to expand.

“Neighborhood Work Club” is by design. The fact that members can’t rent hot desks or private offices actually encourages a different behavior. Members aren’t really meant to come in and work at Switchyards “full-time.” They have a fluidity built into the business that enables less occupancy but doesn’t necessarily affect the bottom line of their revenue.

From a business perspective, Switchyards found the perfect arbitrage. They can leverage the cheaper commercial rent + a unique coworking business model.

This doesn’t work in New York or Los Angeles because these types of businesses have to optimize for occupancy to cover their biggest expense: rent. Almost everything else (including the user experience) is secondary (and you can tell.)

As you can tell, I love Switchyards, but I see another evolution coming just around the corner.

My first experience of a “Lift/Work Space” was at Chelsea Piers in downtown Brooklyn. My dear friend Alex gave me a guest pass where I was able to work out of a small co-working space, get a workout in, and eat a sandwich from the cafe inside.

This WSJ article does a good job breaking it down.

The rise of these types of gyms + coworking spaces makes total sense.

The underlying cultural tension is twofold.

It goes without saying that the impact of remote work is enormous. People realized that they have other options for a lifestyle that don’t revolve around a typical 9-5. They had more time. More time led to more opportunities.

A huge part of that is their personal health and fitness.

Related is the redefinition of productivity.

Although this data is mostly from casual conversations, I’ve been seeing people make the connection between their personal health and well-being and their overall productivity.

It’s no longer an either/or scenario. People aren’t choosing between being productive at work or productive in their personal life. There’s integration happening.

I’m really interested in how space-making will continue to evolve, especially as work and fitness and health and family and community continue to integrate. Are we going to end up going back to giant indoor malls? Are we going to upgrade our neighborhood strip malls? Or will something more interesting be built?

We’ll see.

Routine Trials is my ongoing experiment where I try new products, services, and habits that hopefully make my life better. I’m basically your habit-formation lab rat, and happily so 😉

One thing I’ve struggled with for the longest time has been my work calendar.

I don’t have the greatest memory, so I actually don’t remember what meetings I have, with whom, and when.

If you see me during the day, you’ll observe me manically toggling between various tabs and Google Calendar. It’s really annoying.

I started to just write out my meetings and the times every day on a piece of paper and cross them out as they’re done.

This stupidly simple change has made a huge difference lol.

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