The Workscape

The places where work now happens. And where it's going.

By Matthew Kennedy · Insight · 24 March 2026

I've been watching something take shape for years. It doesn't have a name yet, not really. People talk about remote work, hybrid work, flexible work, but none of those terms capture what's actually happening. They describe policies, not reality. They're about where employers let people work, not where work is actually going.

What I see is bigger than that. A whole system emerging. New layers forming. Old layers adapting. Millions of people, every day, assembling their work across places that would have seemed strange a generation ago.

And it's still early. Think about the gap in expectations between someone entering the workforce today and someone leaving it. A twenty-two year old has never known a world where the office was the only option. A sixty year old spent most of their career where it was unquestioned. One generation built their lives around a fixed location. The next will never understand why that was necessary.

We're living through the transition between those two worlds. That's what makes this moment so interesting.

All those options, the ability to assemble your work across different places depending on what you need, I've started calling that the Workscape.

Not a single location. Not a debate between office and home. An ecosystem with different layers, each with its own logic, its own momentum, its own future.

What I mean by layers

To me, the workscape has four key layers. I didn't invent them, I just noticed them. Spend enough time around coworking spaces, incubators and hospitality venues, you start to see the patterns. Where people go, why they go there, what they're looking for, what they're escaping.

Casual space is the one most people don't think about as a category, even though they use it constantly. Cafés, hotel lobbies, bars, libraries. Places that weren't built for work but have become workspaces anyway. Nobody planned this. It just happened. People showed up with laptops, and some places welcomed them, and word spread.

Casual space has something no other layer has: it's already everywhere. Every neighbourhood, every city, every country. The distribution is unmatched. What's missing is everything underneath. No way to know which places actually want you there. No norms for how it works. No infrastructure. Just a vast, global network of spaces running on goodwill and guesswork.

Hosted space is where I spent most of my career. Coworking, members' clubs, flexible offices. Places designed for people who need somewhere to work but don't want the traditional setup. You're paying for environment as much as access. The right crowd, the right atmosphere, the right balance of structure and freedom.

This layer is booming. Multi-billion dollar industry, growing fast, and the operators who've figured it out can't expand quickly enough. The demand is real. People want this. Not everyone, but enough to make it one of the clearest growth stories in commercial real estate.

Corporate space is adapting. The old model, long leases, generic floors, everyone in five days a week, that's under pressure. But the best corporate space is thriving. The buildings that have invested in experience, in quality, in giving people a reason to come in. They're full.

It's everything else that's struggling. The average office, the dated fit-out, the space that exists because it always existed. Landlords need to work harder than they ever have. They're having to earn tenants now, compete for them, prove the value. That's new. For decades, corporate space was the default. Now it has to justify itself against every other layer.

Utility space is the layer people forget about, but it's essential. Studios for podcasts, photography, video. Warehouses for ecommerce brands that need to hold stock. Workshops, makerspaces, facilities for the work that can't happen on a laptop.

This used to mean ownership or long-term leases. That's already changing. On-demand access is growing. But there's still friction, still gaps, still a way to go, but massive opportunity.

Where this is going

Each layer has its own trajectory. That's what makes the workscape interesting. It's not static. It's a system in motion.

Casual space will get infrastructure. It has to. The spread is too valuable, the usage too high, for it to stay informal forever. Someone will figure out how to make it work for venues and workers at the same time. How to take all that latent capacity and make it reliable without making it sterile.

Hosted space will keep growing and segmenting. Different operators for different crowds. More specialisation, more curation. The generic coworking box will fade. What replaces it will be more intentional, more designed around specific needs and identities.

Corporate space will shrink in volume but increase in quality. Less total square footage, but what remains will be better. More like destinations, less like obligations. The office becomes a place you choose to go, which means it has to be worth choosing.

Utility space will become seamless. Need a studio? Book it for the afternoon. Need space for stock? Rent it by the month. The friction keeps dropping. Physical capability, available when you need it, without the commitment that used to come attached.

The picture that's forming

When I think about what the workscape could look like in ten or twenty years, I see something more fluid than what we have now. People moving between layers without friction. A café in the morning, a coworking space for a meeting, a studio in the afternoon, home in the evening. Each layer doing what it does best.

I see casual space with enough structure to be reliable. Venues that welcome workers because it makes sense for them, not just because they tolerate it. A way for both sides to win.

I see hosted space everywhere, varied enough to fit different needs. Not one model but many. Places for focus, places for community, places for collaboration. Bookable, accessible, designed with intention.

I see corporate space earning its keep. The office as a genuine draw, not an obligation. Companies using it for what it's actually good at, bringing people together, and letting go of the pretence that everyone needs to be there all the time.

I see utility space opened up. Studios, warehouses, workshops, not just available from dedicated providers but shared by the people who have them. Capacity that used to sit idle, now accessible by the hour. The physical capabilities that used to require ownership, available to anyone who needs them.

And underneath all of it, I see people with more choice than any previous generation. More ability to shape their days around how they actually work and live, not how someone else thinks they should.

That twenty-two year old entering the workforce today won't think of this as a shift. It'll just be how things are. They'll build their working lives across the workscape without ever knowing it was once concentrated in a single place. The layers will be obvious to them. The fluidity will be normal.

That's the world that's forming. The workscape. Not a policy. Not a trend. A new arrangement of how and where work happens.

It's already here in pieces. The question is how it comes together.

I've been watching it form for fifteen years. I think we're just getting started.