What a decade of building coworking spaces taught us about how South Africans work

When people think about revolutions, they often imagine big bangs and radical new ideas. But many revolutions begin by seeing familiar things differently.

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, abandoned warehouses and war bunkers across East Berlin found new purpose. From the outside, these buildings weren’t particularly remarkable, but what happened inside them was. In a quest for freedom and self-expression, young Berliners transformed these forgotten buildings into underground clubs, which ultimately sparked a cultural revolution and cemented Berlin as the world’s techno capital.

That similar idea of finding renewed purpose in existing spaces resonates with what has happened at Venture Workspace over the past decade. While no walls have fallen and no empires have crumbled, the way South Africans work has shifted just as profoundly. A burgeoning appetite for lifestyle balance has fuelled a hybrid work revolution, and we’ve been there to witness it all firsthand.

Finding our own rhythm

Alongside fellow owners, Colman Murphy and Chris Hayman, we’ve spent ten years turning underused corners of business parks, malls and lifestyle centres across the Western Cape into lease-free workspaces – flexible hubs for local professionals to create, connect and get things done.

Most conversations centring on productivity and modern workplace culture are shaped by Silicon Valley, New York or London. But this is South Africa. We commute differently, build businesses differently, and navigate our own economics differently. At Venture Workspace, we’ve been fortunate to witness thousands of South Africans from every industry at work in real time. We’ve seen freelancers become agencies, start-ups become established businesses, and teams scale up, pull back, and grow again as opportunities have shifted.

South Africa has its own unique rhythm. From our vantage point, adaptability isn’t a trend for South African businesses. It’s how we operate daily, and it demands the right infrastructure to support it. This shows up clearly in our numbers:

• Through Covid-19 uncertainty (2020–2022), individual workspace market values jumped by 24.6%, 34.9%, and even up to 49.9%.
• Between 2023–2025, hot-desking grew 18.4%, while meeting room demand jumped 19.5%.
• Five founding members from our first Claremont space in 2016 are still with us today.

Ten years on, we comprise a team of 19 with four branches operating across the Western Cape.

For many South African professionals, a workspace outside the home is still essential, but it’s less about the desk, and more about having access to a reliable, supportive environment as and when you need it.

A milestone to celebrate: the amazing Mercy Abongile celebrates her 9th work anniversary with us this year at Venture Workspace Claremont.

Our need for a workplace community

As we live and work today, technology sets the tempo, but people create the atmosphere. At Venture Workspace Riverlands in Observatory, our largest location to date, our first member signed up in 2024 and is still with us. It also reached 100% occupancy within 8 months of opening. 

This alone points to a simple yet enduring fact: despite a rise in remote working, people still want somewhere to come together. South Africans also know that professional success lies in building genuine trust, which arises from relationships. Not hard sells or flashy marketing. One ‘lekker’ coffee chat or email exchange has the power to change a business’s whole trajectory. It can change a life.

When people ask about the future of work here in South Africa, I don’t think about AI or office design first. I think about community. After all, you don’t become loyal to a building. You become loyal to people, purpose and places where you feel a sense of belonging. The next decade of our work culture in South Africa won’t be defined by the biggest offices. It will belong to the places people genuinely want to spend time in, and that can adapt as their business needs change. 

Just as Berlin’s forgotten buildings became the backdrop for a cultural movement, here in Cape Town we’ve learnt that remarkable things happen when people have access to the right ‘soundtrack’: tools, support, and dedicated, accessible spaces where they can bring their ideas to life.