The age of 1 million unemployed youth. The historic-high youth unemployment record is getting worse due to the “growth without employment” trend and worsening economic recession. The government has introduced an economic policy geared toward creat...
The age of 1 million unemployed youth. The historic-high youth unemployment record is getting worse due to the “growth without employment” trend and worsening economic recession. The government has introduced an economic policy geared toward creating a “creative economy,”the core value of which is to promote creativity via the convergent effort based on P2P, P2B, and B2B activities. This is because newly created businesses are the source of new employment and can lead economic growth as well. However, although there is an increasing financial support from the government for start-ups, the government’s policy direction has been too skewed toward expanding infrastructure that their managerial performance has remained inadequate in terms of helping new start-up businesses in their process of creating a new business and assisting them to maintain sustainable growth after subsequent to their start-up process. In Korea, what is called the co-working space is emerging as a new alternative model of collaborative working environment. The development is still in its nascent stage. It attracts many different types of users with unique business ideas and, therefore, there should be a systematic study of business and space management programs that can accommodate the outstanding need.
This research aimed to propose a future direction for the incubating co-working space and analyze managerial collaboration program and network type space using the case studies of start-up support programs in Korea. Also, the research will explore phased start-up programs that can help young entrepreneurs develop an efficient start-up business model and the ways to systematically link the program to collaborative network. The results of the analysis produced the following conclusions.
First, incubating co-working space is a networking space for managing start-up business process. There are various start-up incubating programs available today-ranging from training to start-up cultivation, work collaboration and promotion programs according to the need of users-designed to accommodate the needs of various types of workers and social issues. Also, it requires a managerial space that stresses the importance of networking between start-up businesses and collaborating partners.
Second, the design contains various types of space: a space where managers and collaborators can frequently meet to discuss various issues; an open collaborative space that can accommodate more diverse types of users; an outdoor space that offers opportunities for collaborative work and community events; and a network type space that displays the scene of collaboration to outsiders.
This project presents a design plan for co-working space at Kunkuk University for young IT start-up entrepreneurs by reflecting the spatial characteristics derived from the case studies. The research narrowed the scope of study by designating clear target start-up users and creative contents so that the synergy from collaboration can be maximized. The design of space was based on consideration for the process of making preparations for starting a business and the sustained growth after the launch of business.
The site chosen was the main entrance to Kunkuk University, which is located between the city and the center of campus. The site had remained inactive despite heavy traffic of people. The design tried to create a systematically formed space according to the land axis so that young people and the residents of the district who access the site could easily enter the space in a visually open environment. Moreover, in order to connect to the community and manage the growth of young entrepreneurs, the first floor was designed to accommodate popular public events and the second floor was designed to hold meetings for professional programs. An open collaborative work space was designed centered on the event zone built around a courtyard. In addition, the design for the support space accommodated media sales, raw materials purchase and cafe, providing young IT entrepreneurs with more productive working environment. The second floor transformed a collaborative work space into a form of media so that users can share information about their collaboration works. Also, it was designed to allow them to form a direct network with their mentors, creating a place of communicating input as well as output of their work. Furthermore, the design contained many spaces that can facilitate collaborative network process as well as entrepreneurial training and development-the core idea of incubating co-working space-so that membership management and consulting service can be efficiently executed and provided. Also, the space was designed so that mentors can present lectures to their students or the students can research and play with start-up ideas independently, thus helping young entrepreneurs to grow more effectively.
The research produced a space design that went beyond physical environment as merely a physical place and expanded the spatial concept to the invisible environment of information. It is hoped that the design produced in this research will present a direction for new type of co-working, collaborative network and incubating co-working space for young people. Also, it is suggested that subsequent researches explore and utilize more diverse design perspectives to explore more diverse incubating co-working space design.