Monitoraggio | 3 Questions: Jinhua Zhao on a “third place” between home and office.

Pubblicato
il 12 Marzo 2022

di Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many office workers have developed flexible working arrangements, to avoid too much time spent in crowded offices. But an MIT-supported survey project reveals a twist on this now-familiar scenario: Many workers with location flexibility are not necessarily working from home. Instead, they are taking their work to a “third place,” including cafés, libraries, and co-working spaces. About one-third of nonoffice work hours are spent in such places, the data show, even if those locations put people in closer proximity to others than working at home might.

The results come from the November and December iterations of the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, a joint monthly project in which MIT has joined forces with the University of Chicago, Stanford University, and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. To learn more about this trend and its implications, MIT News spoke with Jinhua Zhao, associate professor of transportation and city planning in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and director of the MIT Mobility Initiative, who is working with his students Nick Caros and Xiaotong Guo on this project.

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Pubblicato
il

di Cristina Pasqualini, Fabio Introini, Andrea Rubin (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy)

Il Rapporto Italiani nel Mondo giunge, nel 2021, alla sedicesima edizione. Vi hanno partecipato 75 autori che, dall’Italia e dall’estero, hanno lavorato a 54 saggi articolati in cinque sezioni: Flussi e presenze; Indagini; Riflessioni; Speciale Covid-19 e città del mondo; Allegati socio-statistici.

L’edizione di quest’anno si interroga e riflette su come l’epidemia di Covid-19 abbia influenzato la mobilità italiana. Cosa ne è stato dei progetti di chi aveva intenzione di partire? Come hanno vissuto coloro i quali, invece, all’estero già risiedevano? Chi è rientrato? Chi è rimasto all’estero? E cosa è successo ai flussi interni al Paese?

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Pubblicato
il

di Mina Akhavan, Ilaria Mariotti, Federica Rossi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)

Abstract

Coworking space is predominantly an urban phenomenon. Nevertheless, in the last few years, peripheral and rural areas are becoming attractive for this typology of new working spaces, but the literature on this topic is scant.

The current paper aims to fill this gap by reviewing the studies on this issue and discussing the renewed role of coworking spaces in peripheral and rural areas during the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on Italy. Moreover, a detailed and updated picture of the increasing number of coworking spaces in 2018-2020 in the Italian Inner Areas and rural areas is provided. Finally, some case studies of peripheral and rural coworking spaces are presented, followed by conclusions and further research.

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Pubblicato
il

di Irene Manzini Ceinar (University College London, UK), Ilaria Mariotti (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has altered the habits and lifestyle of every citizen worldwide who is experiencing social distancing, mainly in the work environment, increasing the degree of uncertainty, especially in creative and innovative sectors. New trends, such as remote working and teleworking, emerged, marking a shift in the working culture, and producing a growth of intermittent work modalities and diverse, even community-led, dynamics affecting our urban environment economically, socially, and spatially.
During the year 2020, we have been witnessed a wave of workers moving from traditional work in the office (Second Place) to teleworking at home (First Place) or a Third place (i.e., coworking spaces), with significant effects on the worker’s performance and the geography of work, including implications for the environment. Even if the turn towards local coworking places was already in place, the impact of Covid-19 on coworking has rendered these local spaces vital pieces of an infrastructure of local resilience as work will shift away from global metropolitan areas, as suggested by numerous analyses based on extensive surveys. Within this context, the present paper aims to explore whether and how teleworking impacts the worker him/herself in terms of productivity, quality of life, and well-being. Moreover, the effects of working in a local coworking space (community-led coworking space) are discussed, and attention is devoted to the role of these workplaces to accommodate teleworkers.

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