O-Forty and Soulbricks build and develop the technology campus of the future.
Global Estate Group developed an exciting new site in Bruges/Oostkamp. Soulbricks is playing an innovative role in enhancing the R&D image of the site. We are quite familiar with research and technology hubs, how they are being developed around Ghent, Leuven, and Eindhoven. It’s a trend the Bruges region clearly wants to exploit and benefit from.
The advantages of technology campuses
Group startups, research companies and innovative technologies in one cluster, in so-called research parks, technology hubs or science campuses, without an affiliation to a university, are all the rage. The advantages are multiple. Recruitment becomes easier, research collaboration across companies can be facilitated, sometimes even on a purely opportunistic or haphazard basis. Furthermore, the community feeling, and the dynamics of these environments are often considered to be very stimulating, while also contributing to a region’s communication and marketing efforts, not to mention retention of talents.
Soulbricks – Squadron: mutual benefits
One of Soulbricks’ positive contributions to this synergy is the collaboration with Squadron, a locally based scale-up in process digitalisation and automation. Indeed, start-ups and scale-ups face difficulties in terms of capacity planning for their growth. Renting a whole floor puts a strain on the cost structure, besides it does not offer the same benefits in terms of talent attraction that a coworking environment brings.
Enter Soulbricks. Soulbricks was already involved in the design and creation of the meeting space infrastructure for the total project and we just turned it up a notch in establishing a new collaboration with Squadron. Their investors decided to buy the whole floor but agreed to dedicate and operate it as a coworking space for highlevel, research- and technology-oriented businesses.
The creation, design and commercial and logistical dynamics would be guaranteed by Soulbricks, thus providing Squadron with a cost-efficient solution to grow at their own pace within the stimulating O-Forty environment.
The future of regional coworking
This is how the positioning of the O-Forty campus was boosted by lowering the threshold for companies to enter the ecosystem, while simultaneously enhancing the attraction and the positioning of the whole project. Small companies can become bigger and the advantage of having meeting room facilities, extended infrastructure and entry level access to the O-Forty site cannot be neglected as an impulse for growth and development.
The coworking space is not designed in a traditional way, it provides separate offices, silent rooms, and meeting infrastructure for users, all of this aimed at long term occupation and expansion.
As with most of the Soulbricks office space infrastructure, automation, and the use of apps to facilitate work and safety allow for flexibility and expansion to other campuses and sites. Currently, mobility and flexibility, combined with a hyper-professional working environment prove to be a game changer for many organisations.
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