Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 34, Number 12, 1 December 2017 — All in a day's co-work [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

All in a day's co-work

New KouWork space in Kaka'ako offers a headquarters for independents By Lindsey Kesel

T'here's talk that around 70 percent of the workforce will be independent contractors, or location independent, by the year 2020. Right now if you're among the freelanee workforce in Honolulu, you probably toil away in the comfort of home, or bounce

around to coffee shops with Wi-Fi, looking for the right environment to get you in the zone. While work-from-home life has some definite perks, it ean get monotonous and become the opposite of motivating. Luke Williams and his wife set out to answer the question: Where ean independents go to thrive? A Kamehameha Schools graduate, Williams was always looking for ways to fit Native Hawaiian wisdom and values into his life and work. For his doctorate thesis in architecture at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, he studied the way the mind behaves while reciting the entrance chant Kūnihi Ka Mauna, and built a physical structure from plywood that mimicked the process. After school, he worked under Dr. Lilikalā K. Kame'eleihiwa doing land grant

studies, trained with the Polynesian Voyaging Society in his spare time, and went on to work in a few loeal architectural firms. After the birth of

their son, he and his wife Lauren, a kumu hula with a degree in 'ōlelo Hawai'i, had an important realization about their future: "We reached a fork in the road, where we knew that if she went back to teaching and I continued on the architecture path, we'd blink our eyes and 30 years would go by," he says. "We shared this entrepreneurial desire.

or 'illness' as some people would say." They listed out their strengths and looked for the overlap, cut their teeth on small business ownership and eventually landed on eoworking. The eouple set out to build a collaboration hub from the ground up, where people could work smarter and have a good time doing it. They partnered with Matt Heim, owner of Bruē Bar Cafē, to include a coffee shop in their design. A second partner eame into the picture when Philip Hasha, co-founder of the design/build company Redmont Group, offered to let them take over his offtce's ground floor in Kaka'ako. Though the Williams are both part-Native Hawaiian, it was actually their partners who suggested infusing a place-based concept into the co-working space's name. They

settled on the Hawaiian word "kou" - onee an alternate name for Honolulu, a shady tree used for eanoe making and a word that signifies ownership or belonging - and "KouWork" was born. Williams designed every detail of KouWork and serves as frontman/ambassador of aloha along with his mascot Primo the yellow lab, and Lauren handles mai-keting. Opened this past August, KouWork offers a eool and comfortable home base for freelancers, entrepreneurs and start-up founders where they ean focus, network and even play (think pau hana parties and a ping-pong table). KouWork is built to be flexible and modular, with high-speed Wi-Fi, semi-private booths, Zoom Rooms with software-based video conferencing and a Fireside Collaboration Space with pillow seats and write-on walls. "By nature eoworking is very collaborative, so we wanted to cover all the modalities of how people like to work," says Williams. "As people move through their day, the space is super flexible so they ean adjust as needed." World travelers Carmela Resuma and her husband Raymund Maravilla flew to O'ahu to experience KouWork after they won an online contest for a three-month member-

ship. She's a non-profit/NGO consultant, and Maravilla is a photo retoucher and artist, and together they run the travel blog NoWrongTurns.com. "It's definitely easier to roll out of bed, open my laptop, and get to work right away," says Resuma. "But work-

ing out of KouWork was infinitely better for my career and productivity because of the community. This goes farther than just networking... The plaee practically oozes with inspiration when all our *Kou-workers' are there for the day." Williams and partners have high hopes for KouWork as a proof of concept, with their sights set on creating several locations throughout O'ahu. "The life of an entrepreneur or freelancer ean be lonely at times," says Williams. "Creating a physical space that allows you to be with like-minded people is the 'why' behind KouWork. As Hawai'i shifts to be more supportive of this

lifestyle, we want KouWork to be the plaee that comes to mind when people think of co-working." KouWork 814 Ilaniwai St. meetatkou.work ■

r ] ** i — 1 1 II ■ 1 I II /I y 4r ' J \ - TiH L 1^^^ 1^* " y* 1 KouWork in Kaka'ako. - Photo: Courtesy Kouwork

Luke and Lauren Williams. - Photo: Courtesy Kouwork

A M L yy KouWork in Kaka'ako. - Photo: Courtesy Kouwork