We Solve the Workspace Need Coworking Day Passes Don’t Cover

Coworking has solved many of the flexibility problems created by traditional office leases. But there is one increasingly common need that most coworking products were never designed to address: someone who needs a professional place to work for just one or two hours.

A business traveller has two hours between meetings. A hybrid worker needs somewhere quiet for an important call. A delayed train suddenly creates an hour of working time. In all these cases, buying a full coworking day pass may not make sense.

Jean-Yves Huwart, founder of Coworking Europe, discussed this gap with Oliver Lehmann, responsible for growth and partnerships at ATworld and former General Manager of Mindspace Germany.

Launched in March 2025, ATworld has built a network of nearly 2,500 locations, ranging from coworking spaces and cafés to hotels and airport lounges.

The idea is not to replace coworking, Oliver says. It is to cover the moments when a traditional coworking product does not fit the need.

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What If Someone Only Needs a Desk for Two Hours?

For most coworking operators, the smallest bookable product remains the day pass.

That makes operational sense.

A coworking space is not necessarily set up to market, sell and administer workspace in one- or two-hour increments.

But the demand still exists.

“What about the people who are looking for a space just for one or two hours?” Oliver asks.

Take a business traveller arriving from London for meetings in Berlin. They may have two free hours between appointments, but little reason to spend €30 or €35 on a full day pass.

The same applies to someone waiting for a train or looking for a quiet place before their next meeting.

“Would they buy a day pass? They have no need for that.”

For ATworld, this is the gap to address.

A Complement to Coworking, Not a Competitor

Oliver is careful to distinguish this model from traditional coworking.

“We’re not competitors of the coworking industry,” he says.

Instead, ATworld aims to bring operators demand they might otherwise never capture.

A coworking operator could theoretically develop and advertise an hourly product. But acquiring those users, handling registrations and building the necessary operational infrastructure for small transactions can easily cost more than the opportunity is worth.

ATworld aggregates that demand across a wider network.

For participating coworking spaces, the result can be incremental traffic and revenue from people who might otherwise have simply walked past the building.

It can also introduce new users to a workspace.

“They can encounter your spaces, get to know your spaces and maybe potentially even become your members in the future.”

Borrowing a Model From the Fitness Industry

The concept has parallels in another industry.

Oliver points to fitness platforms such as ClassPass, Wellhub and Urban Sports Club, which allow customers to access different gyms and fitness facilities through one network rather than maintaining individual memberships with every provider.

ATworld is applying a similar principle to workspace.

A travelling employee cannot realistically maintain memberships with dozens of coworking brands across multiple cities and countries.

Instead, one network can provide access to different types of places depending on where and when workspace is needed.

“We just want to build a global network where people, no matter where they are, can find a space to work from.”

Why Hotels Are Part of the Workspace Network

Coworking spaces are only one component of that network.

Hotels represent another largely untapped supply of workspace.

Their lobbies and communal areas often sit empty during parts of the day, while simultaneously offering exactly what mobile workers need: Wi-Fi, seating, hospitality, food and beverages, and locations close to transport hubs or business districts.

Hotels also want more interaction with their surrounding neighbourhoods.

“They want more people coming in, but they don’t know how to do it,” Oliver says.

ATworld formalises that relationship.

Rather than simply walking into a hotel lobby and hoping it is acceptable to work there, members enter as recognised customers. Depending on the location, membership can include a first drink, food and beverage discounts and reduced accommodation rates.

That distinction matters.

For Oliver, hospitality is an important part of why these environments work.

Train Stations Need to Be Part of a Network

The idea of providing short-term workspace around transport hubs is not new.

Europe has already seen attempts to create dedicated coworking or work lounges inside railway stations, with mixed results.

Oliver believes one reason standalone concepts struggle is that they address only one particular moment in a worker’s journey.

A workspace located exclusively at a railway station is relevant to train passengers—but not necessarily to someone travelling by car, plane or simply moving around a city.

The network effect changes the proposition.

Train stations, airport lounges, hotels, cafés and coworking spaces become different parts of the same infrastructure.

Location remains crucial.

A workspace close to a station can generate significant usage, Oliver says, but it needs to be genuinely convenient rather than hidden in a difficult-to-find part of the building.

The Demand Isn’t Only at Airports and Train Stations

Perhaps the more interesting pattern is where ATworld is seeing usage outside major transport hubs.

The need for short-term workspace also exists in residential neighbourhoods.

Hybrid work has created millions of employees who technically can work from home but do not necessarily want to spend every remote-working day there.

Sometimes the problem is very practical.

A partner may also be working from home. Children may be there. An employee might simply need a quiet environment for an important call.

“I really need some space where I can focus,” Oliver describes the situation. “Having now a space for one, two, three hours—that would be amazing.”

This creates a type of neighbourhood demand that can be difficult for traditional coworking operators to serve at scale.

A New Layer of Workspace Infrastructure

In Berlin, ATworld sees this pattern in residential areas such as Zehlendorf and Prenzlauer Berg.

People are using locations close to where they live rather than travelling into central business districts.

Where a coworking space exists, it can capture that traffic.

Where it doesn’t, a hotel or café can fill the gap.

This points towards a broader interpretation of flexible workspace.

The market may no longer be defined only by people actively searching for an office or coworking membership.

There is another group: people who already have an office, work under a hybrid policy or are fully remote, but occasionally need professional workspace for a few hours.

They do not necessarily want coworking.

They simply need somewhere appropriate to work at that particular moment.

What Does This Mean for Coworking Operators?

For coworking operators, Oliver sees the model primarily as another distribution channel.

ATworld does not charge its workspace partners to join the network and markets participating locations through its own channels.

For independent operators in particular, being part of a broader network can also provide visibility among international users who might never discover the brand otherwise.

The immediate opportunity is incremental revenue.

“We can really prove that with ATworld they can attract people they wouldn’t have seen before.”

But Oliver sees another benefit in moving away from isolated workspace networks.

“The beauty of coworking is that we all connect with each other.”

ATworld also allows participating operators to promote their events, potentially introducing users not only to their workspace but also to the communities around them.

Final Thought

Coworking has become very good at selling flexibility by the month, the week and increasingly the day.

The next opportunity may be much shorter.

As hybrid work and business travel create increasingly fragmented working patterns, there is growing demand for professional workspace that might only be needed for an hour or two.

For coworking operators, cafés, hotels and other hospitality businesses, that demand represents a different market from traditional membership.

The question is no longer simply where people work.

It is who provides the right workspace at the exact moment they need it.