Montréal in the summer is a haven for remote working. In addition to our stunning coworking spaces and hotels with incredible environments for logging some business hours, we’ve got a whole crop of stunning outdoor spaces expressly designed for green desking.
What is green desking?
To understand green desking, it’s first helpful to understand “hot desking.” Hot desking is a rotational system of sharing desks. Workers are encouraged to maintain a sense of mobility with the idea that new relationships will form and new synergy will result with regular relocation.
Now imagine hot desking in a beautiful, natural environment. That’s the essence of green desking. Sometimes these shared spaces are outdoors in either urban or rural environments, such as in a park or on a patio. But green desking could also include indoor spaces that designed to mimic lush environments, to optimize the emotional quality of being surrounded by nature.
Montréal green desking is in full bloom
One of the reasons Montréal is embracing the green desking movement is because of strong initiatives at street level (pun intended). One of the companies leading the green desking revolution is Aire Commune, creators of free outdoor work stations. Co-founded by Marie-Pier Tessier De L’Étoile, the non-profit organization has a mission to dynamize the urban experience through the creation of spaces and the organization of events.
“Although there are more and more green desking initiatives in the world, both in conventional office spaces and in the residential sector, Montréal is the only city to have a network of green offices in public spaces,” Tessier De L’Étoile told us.
Since it was founded in 2017, Aire Commune has set up over 40 public free coworking spaces called “îlots d’été” (translated as “summer islets”) in addition to larger outdoor meeting rooms in public spaces you can reserve for your work group. All of Aire Commune’s spaces have free Wi-Fi, electricity, shade from the sun and comfortable seating. Their unusual meeting rooms are dotted across town in parks, on street corners, on roofs and terrasses.
Planting the seeds of productivity
The benefits of outdoor work are well documented. From Forbes to Indeed to LinkedIn, much has been written about the science-backed impact of working outdoors, which includes increased happiness, reduced inflammation, more energy, improved memory and stress relief. So, the question isn’t if we should be working outside, but rather: when are we heading out?
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