If you could picture the most beautiful workspace in the world, how would it look like?
© Jeroen Verrecht
Where would you get inspiration from? As far as I am concerned, when I came across Fosbury & Sons through a coworkies member, both of the previous questions got answered. I found in Fosbury & Sons an astonishing and complex simplicity. Recently created, the Belgian brand has opened, a few months back, a space in Brussels that got massively popular. The reason? Fosbury & Sons took over a modernist building designed, in 1967 by the famous architect Constantin Brodzki. We sat down with Stijn Geeraets, Co-Founder of the brand to go through the process of building from scratch such an incredible concept.
Can you start by telling us what brought you into coworking?
It all started with frustrations I had in Corporate life, like the 9 to 5 idea, the rigid mentality of the company and the work culture did not make me quite happy. It was a dull environment which felt like a golden cage and I really wanted to break out. I had a lot of ideas and together with Maarten, my co-founder we asked ourselves what would make a better office.
We realized that when people hear the word “office” there is an image that comes to their head that did not change for the last 50 years. We wondered why is that, why are we still on this grey, dull environments, which we call our work environment whilst people love to go to nice hotels or nice restaurants, for which they pay a lot of money. People also loan a lot of money to build their house, but a lot of time is actually spent at the office - an environment they did not choose and that does not feel good.
We found some scientific research that have been conducted, analysing these kind of offices and it was clearly highlighting that people are not happy. People don’t want to be in an office. We asked ourselves why is it that people don’t like offices and how can we do it differently.
It took us about a year to investigate and find what we can do differently. Same as Dick Fosbury, the guy who reinvented the sport of high-jumping. He completely rethought it and built a new standard - that’s exactly what we want to do.
Create the new standard of the office and more generally of working. What coworking is today should actually be the office of everyone, not just freelancers, creatives or startups.
© Jeroen Verrecht
You have taken the “challenge” to renovate one of Belgium’s most famous architecture buildings, did you feel a lot of pressure while transforming it?
I would not say pressure. From the beginning, we knew we had good intentions with the building. We wanted to preserve it, to preserve the masterpiece. We knew we had something very special in our hands so we approached it very carefully, respecting the history of building and its aesthetic and its technique. Because we knew we had good intentions, it took the pressure away but not the challenge.
Bringing the vibe of Fosbury into something that is already really beautiful was a challenge. I definitely understand the use of the word pressure, because there was a lot of eyes on the building, especially the one of the architects.
One of the buildings he created got turned down and ruined which was really not what we wanted to do. We wanted to make it beautiful and add something new to it. We wanted to make it accessible to not just one company but to everybody. Before we took it over, the building was used by one company called CBR which is a company in the cement / concrete industry. They left the building and it remained empty for a few months. We entered the building for the first time in November 2017 and loved it immediately. We knew this was the one.
Constantin Brodzki, the architect behind the building is 93 years old today and still very active. Has he been involved in the renovation? What did he say when he saw the building finished?
We had the honour to meet him. He invited us to his house in Brussels. He was very active but also very critical, very concerned about his baby. When we went to his house, he had this big maquette of the building and he was ready for us with a flipchart to explain to us the techniques of the building. Techniques were his main concern. In our dialogue with him, we were able to take those concerns away from him. When he understood that we wanted to preserve the building and we had good intentions for it, he felt very relieved.
It was a good conversation. Now that the renovation is over, we invited him but since he is 93 years old he is not that mobile. We are meeting him soon, in the building. It’s very exciting to see what his reaction will be. He has seen articles we’ve shared from the press so he knows how it looks but he did not see it yet. The building has been picked up by a lot of press around the world, from Australia to Japan, it’s all over the world.
© Jeroen Verrecht
Having a space so full of History, was it a positive thing or a challenge when planning its renovation?
We experienced it as something very very positive. We knew we had the opportunity to preserve this beautiful building and save it from being ruined by others. Architecture and Aesthetic being in our DNA, it made us feel very relaxed about the renovation.
© Jeroen Verrecht
Speaking of design, can you talk to us about the process, the concept you wanted to bring to life for the brand in both Brussels and Antwerp?
The idea behind the brand Fosbury and Sons is to bring high-level quality of life into the workplace. Our focus is on well-being of our members. We had the vision to create a well-designed human work environment which feels a bit like home. The briefing to the architects was - we are not going to create an office, we are going to create a home. That was the idea in both Antwerp and Brussels. It’s about mixing the right ingredients into this recipe. These ingredients being design, furniture, art, greenery, but also the people within from the members to our own team. The content we create is around the beauty of things.
If I can give an example, in the morning, when you enter one of our buildings, you are being greeted by our front desk with a big smile. Everything is important for us. But of course, every building has its own character, we are not creating a Mc Donald’s. Our starting point it the building, what is the character of this building and how can we reuse it and make it future proof for the next 20 to 30 years. That’s our idea.
©Fosbury & Sons
For who did you design your spaces?
In our perspective, creativity is connecting the dots between people, although at first they might not be related. In essence, that is creativity. Innovation, new teams arise when things that are not connected, come together. That is innovation. The environment we created is here for everybody. Whether you are a lawyer, a big corporate, a diplomat, a SME you are welcome here. We did not want to create a tech hub or a design hub. We imagined a lawyer sitting next to a developer thinking about the process of lawsuits and creating an app out of it. We love the diversity of our community, we love the way they work. It’s all about the mindset. If you are concerned about the well-being of your team, you might like having an office at Fosbury and Sons.
©Fosbury & Sons
We have a holistic approach to well-being. We talk about the Human level. If you are in the lobby, or the bar, I can invite my new-born baby and my wife here to have lunch. I can hold her during lunch. This example - being able to invite my family here, makes the space very human. It also gives me an energy boost. This is not possible in a typical office environment. I have been working for big corporates for the last 7 years and this was unthinkable. There was no way my baby would be there in the office. It’s that aspect that makes Fosbury and Sons unique.
©Fosbury & Sons
How do you create a sense of community inside your spaces?
That’s of course one of our main tasks. Connect companies and people within the building. We have an event manager, we have a community manager and that’s their role. Create events where members can connect in a business way but also a more informal way through parties or other events we do. We recently organized a ballet here in the lobby for instance. Once a month we organize afterworks which turns into parties. It’s about sharing knowledge and creating the atmosphere for it. We also actively connect companies through our community manager. She talks to companies, understand their needs and then connect them.
We have created a mobile app, very simple, where members can book meeting rooms, but also discover people in the building and their companies. The idea behind it is to connect people but not communicate. So, in the app, there are 3 buttons - I want to have a pool game with you, drink a coffee with you or a lunch with you so members can meet face to face. Furthermore, members can use the app to book meeting rooms, check the lunch menu and contact our Spaceman for questions.
© Jeroen Verrecht
I loved the term you used on your website “Renaissance of Work” - where did that come from and what do you mean by it?
The Renaissance is like a rebirth. There will always be a need of offices, it’s like paper it won’t go away. It’s just the way we approach it and the way we use it that is different. Asking this question why our offices look the same as 50 years ago, it should be different, for us it was a rebirth. Create a new style of living your way day like starting with a great coffee freshly roasted instead of a cheap coffee in a plastic cup. We are reinterpreting the idea of an office. Renaissance is a strong word and we like to say “The office is dead, Long live the office.”
© Jeroen Verrecht
Culture plays an important role at Fosbury & Sons, why do you believe it’s important in a working environment and what kind of Culture do you bring in?
There a few parameters making people really happy, one of them being meaningfulness, another one is connection with other people. There is a Belgian psychiatrist that says that humans are collective type of creatures. We need other people to be happy. It’s our job to create / facilitate an open environment where those connections can happen. A lot of people who are here chose us because they want to be surrounded by others and they know they can create things with them.
©AP file photo
Lastly, can you tell us where does the name come from?
Fosbury relates to Dick Fosbury who changed the sport of high jumping back in the 50s. He started to jump with his back facing the stick, which is called the "back-first" technique.
Up until today that’s the standard. That’s the way people jump. For me that’s normal but back in the days, when he showed his technique for the first time in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, people were like, “what is he doing?”If you see movies from that time, it’s the other way around.
We created a new norm. It’s our mission. Gives this movement around work, an extra push and create a new standard of work, We want this to be normal in the 5 to 10 coming years. We want people to enjoy their days at work and have a great quality of life, not just during their weekends or holidays but also at work. Sons stands for the companies coming here and changing their part of the world. That’s the idea behind our name.
- The End.
Curious to discover more about Fosbury & Sons? Make your way on their website here
