A new coworking space for Sant Feliu de Guíxols, on the Costa Brava.
After several months of renovations and fitting out, Costa Digital opened it’s doors to coworkers today! Owners Maria Paredes and her husband Adam Smith said:
We’re delighted to finally open the doors! We have taken a run-down office, that has been empty for 8 or 9 years, and transformed it into a comfortable and friendly place for people to come and work. We look forward to meeting lots of new people, and providing them with a great service, a warm welcome, and good value for money.
The coworking office is a family run business, with a personal touch – you won’t find any corporate bs here. Adam did most of the renovation and fitting work himself, with occasional help from friends and family and there is great attention to detail, whilst keeping everything clean, simple, and functional. Maximum use has been made of recycling and upcycling, with use of natural wood from sustainable sources, finished with beeswax. The floor has been painted with a modern water-based epoxy resin instead of replacing the floor entirely or using chemical solvent based resins. The overall result is a clean and minimalist space, broken up into different areas and with real plants to soften the view and help to keep the air fresh. There is plenty of natural light from the large front windows, and the office opens onto a small courtyard with seating and a table for those who want to enjoy some Catalan sunshine and fresh air.
The main coworking space is open plan, with a central desk which has space for 10 occupants – 5 on either side. Each work station ins 1.2m wide with 4x 220v power sockets, plus 2 usb power outlets, as well as a fully adjustable office chair by Interstuhl. Adam commented:
Apart from creating a pleasant and functional space, our priorities were comfortable chairs and fast internet! I was very lucky to come across a set of chairs being sold by another coworking in Barcelona which, unfortunately opened just before the covid pandemic and didn’t survive. We had the opportunity to upcycle the chairs, which had hardly been used, and save a bit of environmental impact and money too!
There is a raised plinth running down the length of the central desk, which is perfect for external monitors. Adjacent to this are 3 standing desks set at slightly different heights, and another 2 position desk which is normally used by Maria and Adam, but also serves as a reserve space. There is also a sofa and some very comfortable easy chairs for when you need to chill out. Off to one side of the open plan area there are two soundproofed cabins for making phone or video calls, or for extra privacy. They are a shared resource but can be reserved for a period if you know you have a call at a certain time.
Additional shared facilities are a spacious unisex bathroom and a kitchen area, complete with coffee and tea making appliances, a microwave/grill, fridge, sink with hot/cold water, and table and chairs. As mentioned earlier, there is outdoor seating and a table available too.
Sant Feliu was one of the first towns on the Costa Brava to get ultrafast fibre optic internet and the Costa Digital office has a 1Gb/s connection and a state-of-the-art WiFi6 commercial router, which gives speeds in excess of standard ethernet connections, as well as being designed to connect with 200+ devices without having problems with contention ratios.
