Innovation Spaces

Abstract

Innovation ecosystems today are the lifeblood or the great hope of many major economies, but at the heart of these ecosystems, there are places and spaces. Silicon Valley is not just a place, but a cluster of spaces where people come together to create and innovate in a way that they could not elsewhere. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the influence of spaces on the spread of ideas, innovation and collaboration between people and organisations and to begin to understand how to design spaces that positively affect these three phenomena. The thesis will be broken down into four sections. Firstly, I will review what I deem to be the most relevant literature on the subject of space, innovation and the spread of ideas. I will then lay out my primary research on successful co-working spaces in London, followed by a description of the problems at Somerset House, an example of a successful institution that is struggling to fashion itself as an innovation space. Finally I will suggest an experiment based on these findings that will attempt to confirm some of the theories in this thesis, namely that people are more likely to meet and collaborate as a result of well designed and well programmed spaces.