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Wynn bought the 2.7-acre estate about five years ago, in summer 2015, paying about $48 million for the premises after a much-publicized, years-long search for an L.A. home. For at least the past couple years, the sumptuous spread has been undergoing a comprehensive remodel that involved all-new landscaping and updated interiors. Located in the prime lower Benedict […] More
Selgascano’s candy-coloured Serpentine Pavilion is set to make its Los Angeles debut at the La Brea Tar Pits this summer, where it will host film screenings, talks and music.
Workspace innovator Second Home has purchased and reopened the pavilion, ahead of launching its first US outpost in Hollywood later this summer. It will be hosting a programme of events in the whimsical tunnel, which will explore everything from diversity in entrepreneurship to discussions around how LA can become more sustainable.
The 2015 Serpentine Pavilion installed at London’s Kensington Gardens. Photography: Iwan Baan
Spanish studio SelgasCano designed the iridescent structure back in 2015 for the Serpentine Galleries’ yearly pavilion commission. The Spaces contributor Jonathan Bell described it as ‘a riotously colourful composition, sprawling across the lawn with four distinct tentacle-like entrance tunnels and windows’.
Second Home will open the pavilion to the public on 28 June.
Read next: Why pavilions are the new collector’s items More
Photography: Iwan BaanAs London’s creative centre shifts ever further east, Second Home has chosen an unexpected location for its next space: the well-heeled residential enclave of Holland Park.
The workspace innovator has commandeered the former home of legendary 1960s fashion photographer John Cowan. Working with SelgasCano – who designed Second Home’s first space in Spitalfields and the brand’s Lisbon outpost – it has created a colourful, plant-filled base spanning 12,000 sq ft for its community of creative entrepreneurs.
Photography: Iwan Baan
Photography: Iwan Baan
Photography: Iwan Baan
Photography: Iwan Baan
Second Home Holland Park might be an entirely new breed of workspace for the area but, with Olympicopolis vying to tilt London’s creative epicentre towards Stratford, why is the group seeking to buck the trend?
‘It’s really unhelpful when a city becomes too imbalanced,’ says cofounder Rohan Silva. ‘For a long time it was the east that was neglected [in terms of creative investment], and now it’s the west. I think that will change.’
Photography: Iwan Baan
Holland Park may be synonymous with stucco-fronted Georgian mansions, but it’s also home to the new Design Museum and is fringed by the HQs of fashion mega brands including Stella McCartney and Monsoon. Victoria Beckham is moving her empire to Hammersmith, just down the road, while over in neighbouring White City, the BBC’s old Television Centre is being transformed into homes, broadcasting studios, a Soho House outpost and 255,000 sq ft of workspace.
Second Home Holland Park sets a high benchmark for the latter. Beneath the structure’s soaring trussed roof is a small forest of 35 trees, which swoop their way around curvaceous desks and glass office cocoons. Richard Rogers designed walkways for the building when it served as his HQ in the 1980s, which SelgasCano have retained, while adding new skylights to the roof and uniting the cluster of volumes with Second Home’s characteristic colour scheme.
Photography: Iwan Baan
‘We want to help business escape the bland corporate cubicle,’ says Silva. ‘We care about architecture because we believe it helps businesses grow. Google are spending £1bn on their headquarters at King’s Cross because they know that it will help them win the war for talent. We’re trying to level that playing field… help small teams do better.’
Among Second Home Holland Park’s new residents are Sharmadean Reid, founder of WAH Nails; music company TenWest; recruitment innovator Nurole; and new streaming app Marquee Arts TV.
Photography: Iwan Baan
Second Home curates this mix carefully, in order to help teams forge business relationships and create opportunities for growth. ‘We’ve found that 75% of teams at Second Home are doing business with other people in the community, which is very high,’ Silva explains. ‘The architecture really helps that because you can see everyone else.’
So will Holland Park experience a creative resurgence? The cost of space in the area remains a critical factor – and one that’s reflected in the Second Home pricing.
Flexible ‘roaming’ membership cost £450 per month in Holland Park, compared to £375 in Spitalfields. As Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic joked at the opening, ‘It’s oddly appropriate that Second Home – which began life in Brick Lane – has now set up somewhere where there really are people with second homes.’ But the group’s new workspace certainly fills a gap for west London’s creative community and could be a catalyst for growth.
Photography: Iwan Baan
Read next: Could London’s wild west offer artists a new home? More
Second Home co-founder Rohan Silva. Courtesy of Second HomeWorkspace innovator Second Home has announced it will invest an eight-figure sum in a second Lisbon base, a 6,000sq m space spread over three buildings due to open in 2019.
The second hub will be five times larger than company’s existing Lisbon venue and will cater for both global companies looking for a Portuguese base and to local firms, with spaces ranging from communal shared desks to large private studios.
Second Home Lisboa opened inside the 19th-century Mercado da Ribeira earlier this year. Photography: Iwan Baan
‘Lisbon is moving from a start-up phase to a scale-up economy,’ says Second Home co-founder Rohan Silva. ‘To date the focus in the city has been on providing infrastructure, training and funding to startups but now it’s time to build an ecosystem that supports growth. Our second space is part of that next step for the city.’
Portugal’s economy expanded 3% in the second quarter of 2017, compared with the same period in 2016 and unemployment is now 8.5%, below the EU average. The city’s start-up kudos also continues to grow. This month’s WebSummit tech conference, which brought the equivalent of €200 million in revenue to Lisbon in 2015, attracted more than 62,000 attendees and is helping to drive Lisbon onto the international corporate radar. Mercedes Benz, VICE and Volkswagen are just some of the companies now based at Second Home in Lisbon and the company has already secured interest from ‘one of the world’s biggest high street retailers’ for its next Lisbon office, says Silva.
Second Home Lisboa designed by SelgasCano. The group’s second Lisbon outpost will also be designed by the Spanish firm. Photography: Iwan Baan
The firm will work with its regular architect, Spanish firm SelgasCano, on the project, which will also include a restaurant, a 200-seat venue for talks and events and a Portuguese and English language bookshop, all open to the public.
‘There are outdoor spaces and courtyards and we are planting trees. We want to keep the same design ethos of biophilia and lots of natural light. It’s going to be a campus that feels like real oasis.’
Photography: Iwan Baan
Photography: Iwan Baan
Photography: Iwan Baan
Photography: Iwan Baan
Rising property prices in Lisbon are helping to drive companies towards shared spaces: since the nadir of 2012, the price of property in the city has increased by 35%. In upmarket suburb of Chiado, you can now expect to pay around €10,000 per sq metre, though the average in the city is closer to €2,500 per sq metre.
‘In five years’ time Lisbon won’t be the fashionable city that it is today but I think it will continue to be a city where companies and people can be successful and innovative,’ says Silva. ‘We need to use this moment of attention to focus on making the city structurally better, a place where global companies can land and grow but also where there is fair, equal access to opportunity for the people who live here.’
The new Lisbon space will be the company’s seventh: a fourth London office opens next year and a Los Angeles venue launches in the first quarter of 2019.
Read next: 5 Lisbon properties for sale with commercial potential More
Lisbon is rapidly becoming known as the California of Europe. The similarities stretch further than just its west coast location and great surf: the city is also starting to compete with Silicon Valley in attracting startups and entrepreneurs.
Last month the Portuguese capital was included in WIRED’s list of hottest start-up destinations for the first time, an acknowledgement that the number of tech and creative companies based in the city is growing fast. Over the last five years, 40 Portugal-based startups have raised more than $166 million in funding.
Pictured: An event space inside Lisbon WorkHub, which took over the old Abel Pereira da Fonseca wine warehouse.
While much of the impetus comes from local entrepreneurs, international investors are also making their homes in the city. Foreigners accounted for 90% of the €730 million invested in Portuguese real estate last year, nearly three times the amount for 2013.
While enterprises are committing long term, others are digital nomads basing themselves in Lisbon for a few weeks or months. But all of them are looking for interesting spaces in which to work, and to cater for this growth, a number of new co-working spaces are popping in the city.
Second Home Lisboa will open above Mercado da Ribeira in December. Photography: Courtesy of Second Home
NOW, a 4,000 sq m shared workspace – set to be the largest in Lisbon – aims to open in November in the Beato area to the east of the city. The following month sees London based Second Home open its first international space in the city’s historic centre, Cais do Sodre. Another British coworking brand Ministry of Startups is also considering a new space in Lisbon, choosing the Portuguese capital over destinations such as Tel Aviv and Berlin.
Even Lisbon’s city council is getting in on the act, releasing the former Manutenção Militar factory to serve as a creative hub. As well as acting as an incubator, it will host the administrative offices of Web Summit, which promises to draw some 50,000 more entrepreneurs to the city this month when it holds its annual tech conference at the Feira Internacional de Lisboa.
Manutenção Militar Complex or MMC was an industrial facility that produced food, uniforms and other goods for the Portuguese Army. Photography: DOCOMOMO International
‘Lisbon is the place to be now,’ says Peter Faber, co-founder of Surf Office, a coworking space where members can live on site. ‘A lot of interesting people are moving here and starting new projects; there are a lot of things happening.’
Coworklisboa-founder Fernando Mendes – and the man behind NOW – agrees with Faber. ‘This is the best country to be right now. Portuguese people love to receive new comers. Add in sun, beaches, safety, good food and you have the secret of our success.’
Mendes says that 30% of the companies that use Coworklisboa’s spaces are from abroad, up from just 5% in 2010. Reflecting that, NOW will also offer living spaces alongside its shared work areas.
‘NOW is much more than an incubator or co-working space. It’s being designed to accommodate new services to better support the huge wave of entrepreneurs we expect will be coming to the city in the next few years. We’ll have all the dimensions, to support everything from the nomadic freelancer to digital startup and designer makers,’ says Mendes.
5 Lisbon coworking spaces and tech hubs you should know
NOW
Now is the biggest proposed co-working space in Lisbon and is scheduled to open in November. Spanning 4,000 sq m, it will include living spaces alongside shared work areas and studio spaces. The project also has a community focus and will boost shared learning among members.
Second Home Lisboa
Architect’s visualisation of Second Home Lisboa. Courtesy of Second Home
Second Home’s Lisbon outpost is slated to open in early December and will be located above Mercardo da Ribeira – a vibrant food court and market near the river. With interiors designed by award-winning Spanish architects Selgas Cano, creators of the brand’s original London space and the 2015 Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion, Second Home Lisboa will feature a bookshop, cafe and bar that hosts cultural events.
Surf Office
Photography: Surf Office
If you’re looking for a short term space to live, work and play, Surf Office could be the answer. Centrally located in Cais do Sodre, the city’s party zone, Surf Office has rooms to rent from €60 per night and the space comes with a shared workspace, super fast wifi, break-out rooms and a lounge. Companies from 2 to 20 people can hire the rooms by the night if they want to take a break from their usual location. Surf trips are optional!
Lisbon WorkHub
Photography: Lisbon WorkHub
Situated in the east of Lisbon in Poco do Bispo – an area rapidly becoming the city’s Shoreditch – Lisbon WorkHub is based in one of the most striking buildings in the area: the former Abel Pereira da Fonseca wine warehouse. It features two vast 5-metre-tall circular windows overlooking a pretty tree-shaded square below. Desk spaces are available from €120 per month with events spaces, and private offices from €500 per month.
Todos
Photography: Todos
Also in Poco do Bispo, this 1,600 sq m creative hub focuses on multi-media, film and photography. It interviews all applicants for suitability. Todos offers 40 sq m studio spaces for rent from €400/month, and also has a 17m x 9m photography studio, editing and post production suite, fitting rooms and meeting spaces.
Read next: Why Lisbon’s startup scene will hit full throttle in 2016 More
Second Home will install a blow-up dome in east London this autumn to host creative workshops and yoga sessions for a day.
The creative incubator and event group’s pneumatic PVC structure – designed by Spanish practice Dosis – rises over eight-metres-high, and can be reconfigured from a single bubble into several rooms using a system of membranes and zippers.
Dubbed Second Dome, the inflatable installation features a transparent canopy, spotted floor and bright yellow walls that are designed to add a ‘sense of cosiness and warmth’.
‘Even though we are diminishing the limits of contact, between nature and inside the structure, the artificial and the natural, we also had the intention of having a very artificial environment that is somehow quite alien,’ says Dosis co-founder Ignacio Peydro. ‘It’s not a space that you can find everywhere.’
Second Home originally commissioned the dome for business and technology event Founders Forum 2016, but plans to reinflate it in London Fields on 1 October. A day-long programme of community events, including film screenings, animation and design workshops and a wellness programme will be open to local children and families.
Adds Second Home co-founder Sam Aldenton: ‘There’s an ephemerality that comes with something inflatable, in the sense that what goes up must come down. Architecture has the opportunity to be experimental, and when you’re not working with a fixed building you can push the boundaries that little bit further.’
After its stint in London Fields, Second Home plans to tour the structure around various locations in London.
It’s not the only architectural pop-up the company owns. Second Home previously bought the brightly coloured 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Selgascano, which it plans to turn into a community art space in LA.
Read next: Selgascano designs the ‘no-phone’ Libreria bookstore in London for Second Home More
A new east London bookstore designed by Selgascano is looking to beat the age of Kindle by banning mobile phones and tablets.
Libreria – the latest venture by Rohan Silva and Sam Aldenton, founders of co-working space Second Home – draws inspiration from Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘The Library of Babel’, a short story that imagines the universe as a library.
Photography: Iwan Baan
Selgascano wanted to recapture the tale’s fantastical world by installing irregular-shaped, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, made seemingly endless thanks to mirrored ceilings.
‘Libreria has been years in the making – we believe in the value of books and literature and have wanted to do this for a long time,’ said Silva. ‘Across industries we are seeing a return to physical, material things and a fresh appreciation of craftsmanship. These things are not being killed by the digital; they are being given new life.’
Photography: Iwan Baan
The bookshelves have been hand-built by students from the Slade School of Fine Art using recycled wood. Artist Dr Cato created bespoke lamps for the project while Selgascano cherry-picked a selection of mismatching chairs.
Conceived as an analogue sanctuary, Libreria has a printing press to publish limited editions of titles and bring authors on board to curate some of its book selections. The store will also put on a programme of seminars and performances in conjunction with Second Home, just next door on Hanbury Street.
Photography: Iwan Baan
Libreria’s director Sally Davies told Dezeen: ‘We’ve reached a cultural tipping point, I think, where people are becoming aware of the costs of being constantly digitally connected – and instead crave experiences that are tangible, human, immersive.’
Selgascano, who designed last year’s Serpentine Pavilion, also worked with Second Home on its Hanbury Street co-working space. More
Co-working brand Second Home will make its first foray abroad this May when it opens an outpost in Lisbon.
News of the expansion – announced by founder Rohan Silva at the Digital-Life-Design conference in Munich – comes as the Portuguese capital gets set to host its first Web Summit, an annual tech event in the autumn that draws more than 50,000 people.
‘Right now Lisbon feels like east London just before the tech cluster exploded,’ Silva told TechCrunch.
‘It’s a super-creative city, but there are not enough places for creative people to come together. At the same time, big companies are shrinking, more people are becoming entrepreneurs and the built environment of cities needs to evolve to keep pace with this.’
Lisbon’s Second Home will feature a meandering 100m-long table that spans the width of the space as well as private meeting rooms, event halls and a late-night bar.
The co-working company, which has just raised £7.5 million in funding, is also planning to open a Los Angeles base next year. More
Co-working pioneer Second Home is set to snap up this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Spanish practice Selgascano.
Rohan Silva – Second Home’s co-founder and a former government technology advisor – told Business Insider UK that he is paying a six-figure sum for the candy-coloured pavilion, which opened in Hyde Park this week.
The co-working group – whose Shoreditch space is also designed by Selgascano – revealed what it has in store for its acquisition. ‘We’re taking it to LA next year, and hosting a brilliant new programme of visual arts and live performances,’ it said via its Instagram.
Silva will work with LA-based arts advocate Bettina Korek to put on cultural events inside the venue.
‘We really hope this will make cities more liveable and creative,’ Silva told Business Insider UK. ‘The idea over the years is to take it to other cities as well.’
The 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, open to the public until mid-October, will be shipped to LA in 2016.
Selgascano’s design is not the only pavilion to get a second home. Last year’s edition, designed by Smiljan Radic, is now a fixture at Hauser & Wirth’s Somerset gallery, while the 2012 pavilion by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei has taken up residence in Surrey’s Alderbrook Park. Some have travelled to sunnier climes, including Toyo Ito’s 2002 creation, which now sits in the grounds of a beachside hotel in Nice, France. More
