New working spaces in Lisbon from a chrono-urbanism planning perspective

Abstract

In the last two decades, scholars and planning practitioners have been discussing chrono-urbanism approaches trying to respond to urban sprawl and proposing new urban models based on proximity and access to essential goods, services and welfare opportunities for city residents (Guzman et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic brought this theme to the spotlight, mainly through the 15 minute (15’) city concept (Moreno et al., 2021; Pozoukidou and Chatziyiannaki, 2021) as a way to promote more sustainable, livable and healthy cities. Furthermore, the pandemic has significantly impacted how and where people live and work (Florida, Rodríguez-Pose and Storper, 2021), which is expected to extend beyond the present moment. However, the role of New Workspaces (NWS) that proliferate in our cities (e.g., coworking spaces, fab labs, incubators, maker spaces, etc.) and their potential for creating more sustainable and livable neighbourhoods have not been satisfactorily discussed in these approaches. Choosing a working space to work at a 15' distance (on foot or by bike) from home and accessible to a variety of urban functions can have various impacts on our neighbourhoods, as well as changing mobility patterns and improving people's quality of life (e.g., promoting work-life balance and leaving space for healthier lifestyles. The study presented here is part of a broader investigation (see Di Marino et al., 2022). Driven by increased remote work and flexible work arrangements for a wide range of work activities and users, it has favoured the emergence of new types of workspaces. Some of these reflect the specificities of other sectors, such as the tourism and hospitality industry or the new demands of the workforce (e.g. coliving spaces). To discuss the recent chrono-urban approaches applied to urban planning and the growing and increasingly diverse phenomenon of NWS, the city of Lisbon is empirically examined. To this end, the investigation carried out included identifying and mapping the diversity of NWS, a qualitative analysis of Lisbon planning documents and interviews with key informants, as well as a spatial analysis of accessibility, proximity, density and diversity of different urban functions in the 15' around the NWS.