PUBLIC SPACES
A Workplace of One’s Own Women in Kind creates a workplace designed by women, for women. And it works! By Kimberly Field
The Details Women in Kind 3899 Jackson St., Bldg. #1 Denver, CO 80205 720-261-1181 WomenInKind.com Monthly membership: $195 Monthly dedicated desk: $550 Monthly office rental: $1,450 Event Space Rental: $500 Conference Room Rental: $160 for two hours (free for members)
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Photo: Sandra Elkind
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LET’S BE HONEST, MEN AND WOMEN aren’t the same. They have different needs, priorities, and work styles. Women face their own professional, social, cultural and economic issues. Add family challenges to the mix and it gets even more complicated. So entrepreneurs Virginia Santy and Melanie Ulle imagined the perfect office space for women. “We asked ourselves what it would look like to create a workplace designed for women from the ground up,” Santy says. “What are some of the things we would have to consider given social and professional expectations of women in the workplace and the home? How can we support women and build systems of support into a workplace rather than asking women to figure it all out on their own?” The two dreamed of working in a space that was warm (literally, why are men’s offices always freezing cold?), safe, professional, fostered collaboration, and could accommodate the many roles that women fill every
Melanie Ulle co-founder of Women in Kind
day, including raising children. Their dreams became reality when Women in Kind opened its doors in August.
Services women need Women in Kind is an inviting, open office facility where women (and men!) work in any way that suits their needs. It’s not just about having a conference room, reliable WiFi, and free parking. “We address the pain points in women’s lives,” Ulle says. Women in Kind anticipates and addresses the services women need to integrate the various aspects of their professional and family lives, including the “second shift” women work caring for their families. There is a woman-owned personal assistant business on the premises, a weekly delivery service that can provide home-cooked vegan meals and
COLORADO EXPRESSION OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017
school lunches, dry cleaning, and other services to “fix the little pieces of your life that pile up,” Ulle says. Women in Kind offers monthly memberships for occasional use of the facilities and amenities, or desks for more regular use and small offices for full-time dedicated workspace allowing tenants to “put up your bookshelves and spread out your stuff,” Ulle says. Members can use the space for meetings, to work on specific projects, or for those times that working at home is just too isolated and you need to work in the company of other creative and interesting people. You can bring your kids and “not feel like an epic failure,” on those seemingly random days when there’s no school. Women in Kind has a separate child’s play area along with quiet areas for kids to read or do homework. There are also comfortable lactation rooms. Women in Kind’s location north of City Park in Denver positions it close to the Stapleton neighborhood, where many women are balancing raising young children with their careers and professional aspirations. One thing Women in Kind doesn’t include is the “bro culture” found in many traditional offices. Ulle describes this as men using their outdoor voices on the phone and bonding over raucous ping-pong games in the shared spaces found in many modern office layouts. “Working mothers are trying to pack a lot of work into a short amount of time. They are focused, they use their time wisely. Women in Kind embraces the realities of today’s working women.
