Fast Company - May 2011

space and build projects as soon as they sketch them.

One of the most prominent
examples of this is the 5M proj-
ect in San Francisco, where in
April 2010, developers unveiled a
four-acre campus that features
three inaugural tenants: Hub
SoMa (a desk-for-rent space for
social entrepreneurs), TechShop
(a DI Y workshop), and Intersection
for the Arts (a not-for-profit arts
incubator). The facility caters to
those looking for both traditional
office space (for emailing, writing,
strategizing) and a workshop
(for sewing, designing, welding).
“It’s not creating a Starbucks,”
says Alexa Arena of Forest City
Development, the lead firm on the
project. “It’s creating a center of
gravity that’s constantly going.”
Already, the tinkerer’s paradise

Clockwise from top: Hub SoMa’s communal tables attract groups of workers with their own projects; Deborah Cullinan, executive director of Intersection for the Arts; a chalkboard at Hub SoMa, where entrepreneurs and freelancers can scribble ideas; coworkers often get lunch from food trucks parked in the alleyways between 5M buildings.

has piqued the interest of more than 800 members who work for companies such as Ideo, Foursquare, and Kiva. Membership prices vary depending on which spaces people use: from $25 to rent a Hub desk for five hours to $1,200 to access TechShop equipment for a year. So far, the model is attracting entrepreneurs from hot startups such as Square, which manufactures credit-card readers that plug into smartphones. One of the company’s founders, James McKelvey, even visited a TechShop outpost to build a Square prototype.

Photograph by NAME LAS TNAME David Adjaye, Adjaye Associates “Stephen Burks is a forerunner in his phere. From retail interiors and events to lighting, furniture, and industrial design, he is constantly pushing boundaries and pursuing firsts.” 30