How do you ensure your company is going in the right direction? Miguel McKelvey’s response: “You can only stay up all night so many times.”
McKelvey is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of shared-workspace company WeWork, where he directs all architecture, design and construction activities. Good design is at the core of the WeWork concept.
As McKelvey explains at Startup Grind Europe, simple but notable designs help real life connections flourish. McKelvey’s designs are meant to make people look up from their smartphones and notice their surroundings, and importantly, the people around them.
An instant community
That’s what makes WeWork different from other co-working spaces. Those connections are their fundamental quality and character.
“The point is for us to be together.”
Following their launch in 2010, WeWork has become an international success in the co-working space. Now, they’ve applied the concept to a new experiment, WeLive, which turns co-working into co-living.
WeLive is a shared residential experiment which is already successful. Residents describe themselves as a family, according to McKelvey. WeLive offers more than a home, it offers an instant community.
Making real life connections
WeLive is still in the testing phase of determining who is most suited to this type of living. But, McKelvey says, imagine a 35-year-old woman. Her relationship has just ended unexpectedly. She needs to move out of the flat she shared with her partner. WeLive is the solution, providing not just the furnishings and comforts of home she needs, but also a surrounding social network - in real life.
Of course, this might also be a great solution for her ex-partner. Ideally not in the same building though!