The technology behind a coworking pioneer's first five New York buildings
A New York coworking pioneer that grew into the world's best-known flexible-workspace brand and a leader in its segment. Our team worked side by side with its founders from 2009.
- Scale
- 5 buildings, 5–10 floors each, 10,000+ members
- Engagement
- From 2009: the founders' first venture through their first five buildings
The challenge
Shared workspace means hundreds of independent companies on one network, each expecting the privacy and reliability of its own office, while buildings opened faster than any traditional IT department could plan them.
The technology had to work like a utility. Members arrived expecting to plug in and work, so the network, Wi-Fi, access control, cameras and phones had to behave the same way on every floor of every building, while keeping each company isolated from its neighbors.
Because the design was repeatable, each new building opened on a proven blueprint rather than a new experiment. That experience is the basis for the two coworking centers our team later created in Brazil.
What our team delivered
- Designed and developed the technology of the first five New York buildings, starting with the founders' first eco-friendly coworking venture in 2009
- Multi-tenant networks that keep every member company isolated and secure on shared infrastructure
- Wi-Fi, access control, cameras and phone systems across five to ten floors per building
- A repeatable building blueprint so each new location opened on a proven design
Result
More than 10,000 members across five buildings, and the experience our team then used to create two of Brazil's leading coworking centers.
Roaming without dropping the call
Time from leaving one access point to the first data frame on the next, split by phase. A full WPA2/WPA3‑Enterprise re-authentication repeats the 802.1X exchange; 802.11r (Fast BSS Transition) reuses cached keys, 802.11k (neighbour reports) removes the blind scan, and 802.11v (BSS transition management) lets the network steer the client. Illustrative figures.
Defense in depth, on a loop
Every device on your network sits behind a monitored firewall with two internet circuits, so attacks are stopped at the door and a provider outage does not stop the business.
Separate by region and by business unit
Each business unit lives in its own VRF and VLAN in every region, so a problem in retail cannot reach finance. Traffic between units has to pass a firewall that denies by default and allows only what is written down.
Facing something similar?
Tell us about your environment. We will tell you plainly what we would do and what it would take.