Origin of Spaces DOODle – Day 1
Multidisciplinary CoWorking – Lead Partner LXFactory Lisboa
Summary; Our lead partner describes its’ own Multidisciplinary CoWorking as follows;
LXFactory, a “factory of ideas and creativity”, is a private endeavour located in Alcantara Lisboa, owned by MainSide, a foresighted property developer specialised in (re)use and revitalisation. Transformed from a factory into a new space, where heritage lives alongside tech and creative start-ups, LxFactory has 25000 square metres, holds 200 companies, employing 1000 people and 100 coworkers, in multiple sectors ranging from culture, design, fashion and advertising to trade, technology and commerce, etc.
However LxFactory is more than just joined up organisations and individual independent workers sharing space and collaborating, it is a community of projects, ideas, coworkers and visitors, within that space. Accordingly, LxFactory’s strategy is deliberately flexible. Dedicated project analysis enabling autonomy and self-organisation, allowing each project to adapt and manage the space to suit its specific concepts, are key elements. This provides a unique environment accommodating a wide range of needs and attracting many promising and talented projects, Ler Devagar, CoworkLisboa, Cantina, Wool, etc., which have become icons of a strong local grass-roots culture.
Events such as the OPEN DAYS (Sunday’s LxMarket street market for handicraft, second hand and vintage), conferences such as OFFF, IGNITE, and numerous seminars, fashion exhibitions, music concerts and book launches etc., attract visitors and future projects whilst promoting networking and collaboration, and the international name of LxFactory.
Key Points in Multidisciplinary CoWorking (at LxFactory)
- Factory of ideas and creativity
- Private endeavour
- Foresighted property developer specialised in (re)use and revitalisation.
- Transformed industrial (factory) space,
- Heritage lives alongside tech and creative start-ups
- Joined up organisations and individual independent workers
- Sharing space and collaborating,
- Community of projects, ideas, coworkers and visitors…
- Flexible strategy
- Dedicated project analysis enabling autonomy & self-organisation
- Attracting many promising and talented projects
- Open days promoting networking and collaboration
Key Aspect of MultiDisciplinary CoWorking at LxFactory is point 3 “Foresighted property developer specialised in (re)use and revitalisation”
Questions for discussion
- Are these the 12 key aspects of MultiDisciplinary CoWorking?
- What points would you like to know more about?
- Do you have your own MultiDisciplinary CoWorking project and do you have any information about it to share with us?
- Do you know of any other useful information about MultiDisciplinary CoWorking?
Wikipedia definition of CoWorking. Fernando defines “multidisciplinary (co)working spaces” as “unique grassroots spaces that host different types of individuals and organizations, working independently in different areas such as; creative, cultural, social, technology-based, leisure, commerce, food-services etc… Over time multidisciplinary (co)working spaces may evolve beyond shared and collaborative space to become working / living communities”
Background Information on the Origin of Spaces project in the presentation CoCreating CoWorking Spaces
As our partner ZAWP says; Share your practice with us!
Third Place EU 
The DOODLE is a great idea and I am fascinated by the description of the LX Factory and its activities. It is interesting to see the importance given to “Private Endeavour” and I think ownership is at the heart of any project/enterprise in the sense of committing to and participating in projects. What I do think is important is not to lose sight of the context in which all projects exist in the EU and that is the use of public funding to provide the grounds for the existence of spaces e.g. the public education system that provides knowledge and skills for participation (in the best instances) transport and utility infrastructures, which if privately owned are, nevertheless underpinned by public finances through direct payments to contractors and subsidies to their operations.
My interest, in this work is how to make all enterprises directly accountable to the public and to engage them without the distinctions created by institutional and judicial definitions of ownership and participation that are increasingly underpinned by financial arrangements e.g. bank loans that exclude the possibility of participation and public/community needs.
My question would be, how would LX look as a public enterprise without the definition of public being limited to those found in financial agreements or the formal legislation of EU countries and the EU itself?
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Good question! Perhaps better phrased as how can we learn from the LX factory process (success) in other contexts. As we go through the project is is significant how important local factors are. Maybe we should be developing dialogical learning (be inspired by this to do something original) rather than dialectical learning (what specific aspect of this can we take an reproduce elsewhere)? Hope this helps
fred
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Rather a subtle question that one. I think that what we can do, in the first phase, is for partner organisations to learn from one another. I think LX Factory, especially through the responsibilities of Filipa and Fernando have achieved a unique synthesis. I also think that, as well as individual contributions, there are various cultural factors which mean initiatives take on specific characteristics, as LX Factory has done.
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