General Assembly – Bringing Collaboration and Learning to the Workplace

Earlier this year, General Assembly opened it’s doors attempting to try something new; building a working environment for multiple companies that inspired collaboration, education, and driven by a passion for entrepreneurship. GA’s founders, Adam Pritzker, Brad Hargreaves, Matthew Brimer and Jake Schwartz envisioned a space that recreated some of the excitement and educational experiences of a college campus, but accessible to small companies focusing on design and technology.

Located in New York City, General Assembly is home to many different startups such as Art.sy, Fueled, Moveable Ink, Profitably, Project Noah, Textingly, as well as many others.

The layout of the space is very open, with a lot of natural light coming through the many windows. Filled with Vitra furniture, the space has a very European feel, but one that is made complete by the companies that fill the space. While visitors often make note of the ‘coolness’ or ‘openness’ of the space, it seems to the the community and the energy that make lasting impressions. With so many individuals from a variety of different companies working, learning, or just hanging out, a much different culture is built in the General Assembly environment than would be found in a typical 9-to-5 clock-in, clock out office.

GA has made a point to purposefully foster community and collaboration, which they advise more companies to do by tearing down cubicles to create openness, while still offering temporary private spaces like nooks, conference spaces, or couches.

Given that the space has been in use for several months, General Assembly noted some of the things they have learned in that time:

Lighting is important in setting the atmosphere and having a real emotional impact on people and their workflows.
Whiteboard and community blackboard walls were installed knowing that people would find them useful, but they use them for brainstorming sessions – constantly – even more than we had expected.
The energy/vibrancy/productivity inherent at GA is contagious. People are always saying how they’re immediately energized and motivated to be productive just by being surrounded by other people at GA who being productive. It’s this kind of social ‘electricity’ you subconsciously pick up on and seek to channel and reflect back.
The sound-absorbent couches have proven to be great meeting spaces as well as private personal nooks, depending on how/when you use them.

Let’s go ahead and check out some images of General Assembly‘s space both before and after companies moved in for business (and for more images, check out our post about the company earlier this year).