Courtesy of the Trampery The Trampery's Charles Armstrong
LONDON — Property is coming round to Charles Armstrong’s way of thinking. A very well-known property developer is waiting to meet him after our interview to talk about the possibility of working with the Trampery, his shared workspace social enterprise. Armstrong is increasingly a man in demand.
The Trampery was set up in 2009, a tiny coworking facility in Shoreditch, London, when the word hadn't even been coined yet, an early mover in what is now a multibillion-dollar global industry. But Armstrong and the company he founded are a bit different.
First, as a social enterprise, the Trampery deliberately targets people and companies that can’t afford to pay the highest rents, and any profits the business does make get ploughed back to ensure rents stay cheap and the communities built at its five facilities across London are provided with as much support as possible. Its facilities sometimes target sectors that, by Armstrong's own admission, “you would never look to if you were trying to maximise profit,” such as small fashion businesses.
Then there is the fact Armstrong was a big player in the move to recognise Shoreditch as an innovation cluster, and its rebranding as Tech City, the heart of London’s digital startup community. Today, every city, developer and office owner wants to brand its area or assets as an innovation cluster. Armstrong has a background in sociology and a data company that make him an authority on how to really create a community of people and companies that feed off being close to each other, rather than it just been a branding exercise.
Combined these two things mean the communities the Trampery creates are full of very cool, very innovative and very interesting people. And today, that is something the real estate world wants.
Robert Wolstenholme’s Trilogy Real Estate selected the Trampery to set up a shared workspace at its 500K SF Republic office scheme in East India Dock in East London. As well as 9K SF of coworking space, the Trampery runs the community and events programme that all the building’s tenants can utilise. The life it has given the building is one of the things that has attracted tenants like Vodafone to what is not a traditional office location.
Delancey has brought the Trampery in to manage 10K SF at its 1.2M SF Here East scheme, providing small, very low-cost units targeting artists and creative companies.
Next year its most ambitious project yet will open, Fish Island Village, 50K SF of commercial space across 11 buildings in Hackney Wick, combined with 580 affordable homes. The commercial space has a particular but not exclusive focus on the startup fashion and coding sectors.
“As we get to the next stage of the cycle, property companies are realising that they need to offer a different proposition,” Armstrong said. “In 2009 when we started the Trampery, people thought, it’s lovely, but it will only ever be for startups and companies willing to take space in offices you couldn't otherwise let. But we were always of the view that what was happening in the creative professions would become the norm.