Second Home, the workplace of the twenty-first century – Diário de Notícias – Lisbon

Ribeira Market in Lisbon, is the new home of the Second Home, a place for creativity, new ideas and new business projects

A sea of plants, vases of all sizes, and it is very green and to lose sight of. The first impression is of being in a nursery, but probably is this the right word to describe the Second Home, that since Monday is working on the first floor of the mercado da Ribeira, in Lisbon.

Looking carefully, one sees the people in the middle of all those pots lined up on the tables – “there are more than a thousand plants, and we have a team of gardeners to treat them,” she says with a smile Rohan Silva, the young creator of the Second Home. Many are of headphones, absorbed in their screens, others are on the phone, here and there conversation. The atmosphere is quiet, informal, and it’s supposed to be inspiring and generator of new ideas, projects and businesses. Maybe born there, some of the styles and trends of the future, that there would amaze even the inventor of this “house” that bet on innovation.

“This is not a mere space of co-work”, underlines Rohan Silva, who in the last two months almost couldnt withdraw walk from the Ribeira Market. “Here we bring together a diversity of creative businesses from very different fields,” explains the young british during the seven years he was adviser to James Cameron for public policies, and in 2013 decided to leave Downing Street, to create in London his own project. Was born that, in 2014, the Second Home, a work place that is different, that is the one time the place of each one, and a collective space generator of contacts, a hotbed of ideas and new projects, where there are many cultural programs, sports activities and socializing, which are, after all, opportunities of interaction and relationship.

Open 24 hours per day

“The goal is to gather companies from very different fields, from fashion to design, writing, cinema, businesses, social or financial, of the distribution of meals, or digital communication, for that here are born out of new projects,” says the young brit.

And why Lisbon? The answer comes immediately. “Lisbon is a city very creative, with a huge diversity of industries and activities, was the right place for the the second Second Home, and this space in the Market of Ribeira is fantastic.”

The photographer Nuno Patrício and the designer Gonçalo Costa, who two years ago created in Sobral de Monte Agraço the company Lavender to do wedding photography, moved to there, just on the first day. “Where we were, maybe we were months without racing to the door, and just in the last three days we have already made a series of new contacts, it is fabulous”, says Nuno Patrício. Gonçalo Costa agrees: “we Can enrich the diversity of this ecosystem, there are projects that may be born here.”

Rodrigo Costa, manager of the digital agency Monday is of the same opinion and so he decided, with his partner, changing the company of the previous installations, in Amoreiras, for there: 18 staff members and their laptops, file folders-only the accounting. “We were able to expose our team to other influences and ideas,” explains Rodrigo. “We arrived three days ago and already have two meetings scheduled for next week with other companies here”, he says, satisfied.

Also, the brazilian Anna Arenny expects that the application Levoo, for the distribution of meals, which your company has developed and launched on the market two months ago, have the benefits of “networking” that the space provides. “And there are all the other activities. Yesterday I was in yoga class, it was fantastic,” he says.

Have a work space in the Second Home Market of Ribeira costs 150 euros a month at least, which gives you access to everything 24 hours a day, including wi-fi high speed and all the cultural and sports activities. A wine club, with proofs and all, will be one of those activities. This was an idea of american Catherine Fisher, which is installed in the Second Home Market of Ribeira with your company Glug, that does wine consulting for the United States. “I’m going to boost the wine club, it is a thing that I do like it.”