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Comment by nairteashop | Hacker News Reader

I've actually been working out of this space for the past few weeks. Don't have kids but I see everyday how amazing it is for all the people who work there who do. The daycare is sectioned off so there isn't a whole lot of noise or distractions from the kids.

If you're based out of SF, freelance / work remotely, and have kids, I think this is a fantastic setup.

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The fact that the kids are separate from the work area should have been outlined clearly in the article. After reading the headline and the text, my thoughts were "this sounds horrible and I'd want to jump off a bridge if I worked there."

Now that I know the kids are kept away from the work environment, I can definitely see the benefits. Who watches over the kids while they're in the daycare? A rotating schedule between the parents?

Hah yeah, if the work & daycare sections weren't separate, I would've jumped off a bridge too!

Re: watching over kids: it's like a regular daycare, so they have dedicated staff to take care of the kids. (Which also means the daycare costs extra, on top of the fees for the co-working space itself.)

Are there significant advantages over just picking a childcare facility close to your place of work? Obviously distance comes into it, but I feel that otherwise you're potentially picking the best combo-childcare-workspace rather than the best childcare facility and best workspace.

When I first started reading the article, I thought they were going to suggest working from home with the child around your legs. Ha! Good luck with that!

Presumably it means you can see your child in a five-minute coffee break several times in the work day, and feel less like you're shipping your child off for other people to take care of most of the waking day.

I never did that, but I have known people who have had their children in day care centers close by, and were happy to have them there, may have looked in at lunch, etc.

On the other hand, I knew a woman with an office right upstairs from the rooms where our children were; she got fed up with the management and moved her daughter to another facility--not very far, but not lunchtime walking distance.

The proximity alone is a huge advantage. And I would think that the parents are more organized (ie they all work in the same office) would be beneficial. Above some minimum bar, I'm not sure what the "best" looks like (for <= 36 months).

We compared a few childcare places and while all seemed adequate, the one we went with has a kitchen with some instructional component (e.g., children often see how the food is prepared and get some practice), chickens and vegetable garden, has orchestra-level musicians visit for music days, etc. It's a purpose built facility rather than a retro-fitted house too.

My child is there only two days a week, so I have no issue with not being able to drop in to play during lunch breaks.

How much is the daycare? I thin it ear that they do want parents to spend an hour per week in the daycare? Hard to find information about it.

Looking at the photos it doesn't seem there is a lot of privacy unless you permanently camp out in a conference room. I'm on the phone pretty much all the time, would this not be a good fit, for when I'm in SF?

This is a failing of most coworking spaces in SF, and I imagine its a question purely of economics. I'd like to see (or hey, get funding to start) an open plan office that at least has the option of high-wall cubicles. I also think there's a bit of a gold rush in that commercial real estate owners figure they can just take a big open room and throw a bunch of tables down and charge everybody $300/mo to huddle together.

However, there are also several hackerspaces that have woodshops and whatnot, so it seems like a short hop to think that if computery people can work as part of a multidisciplinary office next to a bandsaw, why not work alongside daycare workers? Maybe there are some legal issues in sharing in this way, but by splitting a big open office into a daycare side of a wall and an internet one, maybe there's a way.

I wonder how a landlord in SF would feel about using a residential address as a shared office: much more affordable than downtown real estate and maybe the bonus of a garden for the summer. I expect that happens a lot unofficially..

Landlords don't care but the neighbors and the city might

Uh...residential real estate is hardly "much more affordable" in SF. In fact, office space in soma is likely still cheaper than residential here (not sure why you'd want to be downtown). Also, probably illegal if not zoned for commercial

Well, there are a few folks who are on the phone quite a bit, but if you need privacy this is not the best setup. There is a small "phone room" with a desk and a door, but just the one.

However, I believe some of the other co-working spaces in SF (including the other NextSpace ones further into the city) have multiple phone booths so you may want to check those out. Drop-in cost for most spaces tends to be about $20 - $25/day.

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