The terrifying, almost triggering ring of the Microsoft Team’s notification has become a sound that haunts many of those who work in remote or hybrid environments. According to the American Community Survey (ACS) by the U.S. Census Bureau, “Between 2019 and 2021, the number of people primarily working from home tripled from 5.7% (roughly 9 million people) to 17.9% (27.6 million people).” By 2023, the number settled to 13.8% of people working from home, which is still more than double the pre-pandemic rate. 📈

This dramatic increase in the data reflects just how drastically the modern work environment has changed, especially in corporate America. Platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams have become essential for daily operations, but this raises deeper questions about what it means to work remotely in 2025. 💻

A picture of Field Day’s interior that has a few couches and a cozy rug. In the distance, there are a few tables for working.

An image of Field Day’s interior from their website

A picture of Field Day’s rooftop terrace, where people are having a crowded outdoor event.

An image of Field Day’s rooftop from their website

I, personally, was very confused when I was searching for new cafes to explore in Pittsburgh and saw Field Day, a “coworking space” pop up as an option. When looking through images on Google, it featured casual coffeeshop tables, office spaces, and even an outdoor patio. Was this a cafe, an office, or just a vague furnished space?

Their website didn’t exactly clear anything up as they described themselves as “a clubhouse in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville, offering beautiful coworking, food and beverage, and enriching events,” but after some research, it seems to be a venue to (1) get coffee and do work outside of home, (2) meet and collaborate with a team, and (3) host various kinds of events, including wedding celebrations and workplace gatherings. Essentially, the answer to my question was the third option: a vague furnished space. 🛋️

However, it seems like spaces like these are going to be popular in a new hybrid-work America. Instead of working “from home”, many people have found their safe space to be “coworking spaces”, which usually offer a membership for people to regularly attend. After researching them further, I found that there are even companies that build and operate these venues on a large-scale like COHatch, which has dozens of their spaces in 8 major cities in the US, including Pittsburgh. In fact, one location is right on Walnut Street, which is less than a 10 minute ride from CMU’s main campus. 🚌

Three pictures of the COHatch location on Walnut Street that shows the outside, an open kitchen space, and a playful space with a pool table and an arcade game.

The COHatch location on Walnut Street

This complicates the idea created by Ray Oldenburg called “third places”, places that are outside both home and work environments that allow people to meet more organically and connect with the community. This describes bars, coffee shops, recreation stores, and even grocery stores. However, regarding these new coworking spaces, are they capitalizing on a need for more “third spaces”, or are they defining a new “fourth” space that combines aspects of home and work, rather than separate them? Discussions around the idea of “fourth spaces” have been emerging post-pandemic, and one paper described it as a combination of “all the three functions: home, work, and networking-socializing in the physical, architectural sense”. 🤔

A screenshot of Crunchbase’s growth outlook on the company, COHatch, over the past 7 years, in which their “Growth Score” is 77, and their “Heat Score” is 88.

The sudden growth of these companies makes sense for the current age of hybrid working, and this is clearly reflected in the Crunchbase’s analysis of COHatch’s growth over the past 7 years. The “heat score”, or “market interest/prominence of a company based on profile activity and presence in the media,” rose starting in the beginning of the pandemic, and the actual growth of the company skyrocketed in 2024. This is likely when investors saw the potential of cashing in on coworking spaces when it seemed like hybrid work was here to stay, allowing the COHatch to open up new locations and optimize their marketing. 🤝

Perhaps, in the current age of housing shortages and insane rent costs in major cities, these coworking spaces are what people need to find a separate space to stay productive in their personal or professional lives. In this way, they demonstrate how work itself is no longer tied to a single place, but to the environments that best suit each individual’s needs and allow them to find consistency in the chaos of their hybrid/remote life. ☀️