“What concerns me most is this idea that we’re returning to the norms from before... when we tore down the walls between home and work and childcare.”
Georgia Norton
Tired of running yourself into the ground?
Then stop running alone.
On February 24th, the London Coworking Assembly presents Unreasonable Connection Goes Live!—a one-day working session for the people running London’s most vital neighbourhood spaces and the public sector allies working to help them thrive. It’s a day to share the load, find real solutions, and build a new playbook, together.
Georgia Norton spent spring 2024 interviewing founders, childcare workers, and parents across co-located childcare and coworking spaces.
What she documented wasn’t a pandemic oddity for affluent families.
It was a structural shift in how people want to arrange work and care.
The report, “The Case for Childcare plus coworking,” argues that these spaces should be treated as essential social infrastructure, not premium amenities.
Georgia calls it social infrastructure because that’s what it functions as:
* Places where work happens alongside childcare
* Where childcare workers gain professional development opportunities shoulder to shoulder with laptop workers
* Where bridges get built between people who’d never otherwise meet
But Georgia’s facing pushback from two contradictory directions.
Front one: This is elitist. How could this ever be universal childcare?
The spaces look too nice, too intentional about natural light and materials.
Front two: Not everyone wants work and care integrated.
Some people prefer separation, long commutes, and wrap-around daycare.
Both critiques miss what Georgia is actually arguing.
She’s not trying to universalise a single model.
She’s pointing out that thousands of families restructured their lives during the pandemic and don’t want to return to the way things were.
They’ve tasted something different—messy, overlapping, human—and the old binary (office or home, parent or professional, boss or employee) feels like a lie.
The teens who kept wearing sliders and pyjama pants to school after lockdown?
That’s the same cultural shift.
We loosened our grip on “how things are supposed to be” and got more realistic about what actually matters.
Georgia names fixable barriers:
* Licensing rules that block grant access
* Outdated funding structures
* The assumption that childcare innovation requires private equity backing
She’s taking these findings to the House of Lords in June.
She’s exploring intergenerational models that integrate eldercare alongside childcare.
Her next horizon isn’t scaling Playhood into a chain—it’s asking smarter policy questions about how to fund site-specific, adaptive models that serve neighbourhoods.
This episode is for:
Space operators are wondering if childcare integration makes sense.
Parents who’ve felt the guilt of separation and want to explore alternatives.
Anyone asking whether coworking can do more than rent desks—whether it can actually function as civic infrastructure that builds bridges across differences.
⏱ Timeline Highlights
[02:07] What Georgia wants to be known for: “Making an impact... putting that report to work to help inspire entrepreneurs, to defend the childcare workforce.”
[03:34] The provocative question that drove the report: “So many people wanted this... Why aren’t we funding models to pilot this?”
[04:56] Why the report’s lens was American: “I’m sitting on more of a global picture.”
[05:53] The tension Georgia feels most: “What concerns me most is this idea that we’re returning to the norms from before.”
[09:10] On loosening standards: “We all loosened our standards... But I think we just got more realistic about, let’s not waste any time on that separation.”
[10:20] The power of bridges: “We need bridges to other people... not binary employee versus boss, teacher versus parent.”
[11:11] What the pandemic revealed: “The pandemic let us see childcare workers as key workers... We should hold on to models that integrate with families.”
[14:03] The contradictory feedback: “Two key pieces of feedback contradict one another—how is this equitable? And also, this isn’t for everyone.”
[15:21] On not dismissing the model: “If there’s a model here that could work in other neighbourhoods, we’ve got to look at smarter ways of funding.”
[16:48] Georgia on fixable problems: “The barriers to making this more accessible—things like you can’t get grants without the licensing. Really old-fashioned things that get in the way. Fixable problems. I like those.”
[17:42] Why childcare changes everything: “When you add or integrate with a childcare offering... there’s something next level going on.”
[19:11] The workforce development story: “One of the strongest stories... is the workforce development that occurs here.”
[24:09] On species needs: “Openness, open-heartedness and open-mindedness to being around other people is absolutely critical to our social cohesion right now.”
[26:30] Small solutions matter: “Microschools, micro-nurseries with coworking show you don’t need the private equity-backed chain—there have to be entrepreneurs trying things out.”
[27:56] What adaptive means: “We need to be site-specific and grow and adapt to meet each other’s needs... potentially even go into the House of Lords in June to share policy ideas.”
The Two-Front Fight
Georgia’s fighting two battles at once.
And they contradict each other completely.
Front one: This is elitist. How could this ever be universal childcare?
The spaces she profiled look gorgeous. Full of plants, natural light, and intentional materials.
People see that and assume expensive, inaccessible, designed for the 2.5% with disposable income.
Georgia pushes back hard: “It’s really sad to me that people assume we can’t all have nice things.”
Why should designing for human thriving automatically signal exclusivity?
Front two: Not everyone wants this.
Loads of parents are perfectly happy with the separation between work and care.
They want to commute, drop off, access wrap-around daycare, and keep the worlds distinct.
Georgia’s not arguing against that choice.
She’s arguing against the assumption that integrated models shouldn’t exist because some people prefer separation.
The contradiction exposes the real problem.
We’ve built a system where innovation in childcare is assumed to be the preserve of premium membership models.
And simultaneously, we’ve normalised the idea that “for everyone” means erasing specificity and choice.
Georgia’s not trying to universalise one model.
She’s documenting what happens when you give families actual options—and then asking why we’re not funding more experimentation.
The answer involves fixable barriers like licensing and grant eligibility, not inherent inaccessibility.
What the Pandemic Actually Taught Us
Some people untethered completely after the pandemic.
Sold everything, joined travelling villages with six other families, became world-schoolers.
That’s the extreme version.
But thousands more made smaller, lasting changes.
They recalibrated. Decided work isn’t fixed to a location. Stopped pretending that being a parent and being a professional are separate identities you swap between.
Georgia keeps coming back to this: “What concerns me most is this idea that we’re returning to the norms from before.”
The norms are:
* Work happens at the office
* Childcare happens somewhere else
* You commute between identities
Teens in sliders and pyjama pants kept challenging that at school.
Parents working from neighbourhood cafés with prams parked nearby kept challenging it.
Coworking spaces with nurseries next door kept challenging it.
The dominant culture for so long said there’s a way to show up to work. A way to be a boss. A way to be a parent.
The pandemic tore those walls down.
And lots of people haven’t rebuilt them.
The settings Georgia profiled were founded by people who experienced that shift and decided to build something that reflects it.
The question now: do we dismiss these as pandemic oddities, or do we get serious about funding models that serve the families who’ve moved on?
Bridges Not Binaries
There’s a sociologist Georgia references (the name escapes her mid-conversation, but the framework sticks): bonds versus bridges.
Bonds are the logical connections.
Your next-door neighbour, your family member, and people you went to school with. You’re already in each other’s lives for clear reasons.
Bridges are what coworking uniquely provides.
You’re sitting with people who didn’t grow up like you, don’t do the work you do, and don’t share your background.
But you’re in the same space.
Empathy grows. You become reciprocal. You support one another.
When you add childcare workers into that mix—working shoulder to shoulder with parents, freelancers, remote workers—something shifts.
The binary breaks.
It’s not employee versus boss anymore.
Not teacher versus parent.
Not “them” taking care of “my” child while “I” do “real” work.
Co-location makes care visible as work.
It puts the people doing that work in proximity to others doing different work.
The threshold gets crossed.
Childcare workers use the desk space on breaks, after shifts, weekends, to get qualifications, do training, look for new roles.
Georgia found consistent stories of respectful working conditions and better remuneration in co-located settings.
The childcare workforce is overwhelmingly female, often shockingly devalued with minimum wage or agency contracts.
But when those workers are on-site, seen, and respected as colleagues in a shared space, things change.
This is infrastructure work.
Not programming events or mandatory icebreakers.
Just conditions for bridges where walls used to be.
The Workforce Development Story Nobody’s Telling
Georgia didn’t expect this finding when she started the research in March.
It became one of the most compelling threads.
The early years sector—preschoolers, nurseries—is struggling to recruit.
Not enough people are entering degree programmes. Not enough people are getting qualifications.
Recruitment across all care sectors is brutal right now.
The work carries immense emotional labour and pays terribly.
But in co-located spaces, something different happens.
Childcare workers aren’t isolated in a separate building, clocking in and out of shifts with no room to grow.
They’re embedded in a workspace where professional development is normalised.
They’re watching people pivot careers, take courses, network, and problem-solve.
They’re part of that culture.
Georgia describes it as working shoulder to shoulder.
Parents tapping away on laptops, yes—but also childcare workers using that same space to level up, explore mobility, and access opportunities.
This isn’t anecdotal fluff.
It’s workforce development infrastructure.
The care sector desperately needs appealing workplaces, positive cultures, and pathways for growth.
Co-located models offer all three.
The story matters because it flips the script.
Instead of “premium childcare amenity for laptop workers,” it’s “professional development ecosystem that benefits everyone on-site, including—and especially—the people doing care work.”
That’s a policy argument.
That’s a funding argument.
That’s the story Georgia wants to take to the House of Lords.
Fixable Barriers (Not Insurmountable Ones)
Georgia loves fixable problems.
She says it twice.
The barriers to making childcare-plus-coworking more accessible aren’t inherent to the model.
They’re old-fashioned structural things:
* Licensing rules that say you can’t get grants without specific certifications
* Funding mechanisms designed for traditional nurseries, not hybrid models
* Tax structures that treat childcare costs as personal expenses, not business operating costs, even when you’re running your family like a business to make work possible
These are policy choices.
They can be changed.
Georgia points to microschools and micro-nurseries as proof that you don’t need private equity-backed chains.
Small, site-specific solutions work.
Social enterprise models like Work + Play Hub in Edinburgh serve neighbourhoods that previously had no coworking spaces.
A mum saw the gap and built something.
That’s the journey over and over—someone becomes a parent, their eyes open to the barriers, and they scratch their own itch.
The question isn’t whether these models can work.
They’re already working.
The question is whether we’ll fund them intelligently so they don’t get dismissed as pandemic anomalies for affluent postcodes.
Smarter grant structures.
Licensing pathways for hybrid settings.
Tax relief that acknowledges childcare as infrastructure, not a luxury.
These aren’t moon-shot ideas.
They’re fixable.
Site-Specific, Adaptive, Alive
Georgia keeps returning to the mycelium model.
(Her colleague Karen teases her about it, but it’s the right metaphor.)
Hybrid businesses that break down walls also grow and adapt to meet each other’s needs.
They’re not franchises replicating a formula.
They’re site-specific, responsive, evolving with their neighbourhoods.
The innovation curve says serve 2.5% of your potential audience really well before you scale.
Understand their needs intimately. Build something that uniquely serves them.
That’s business development 101.
But when a setting is intentionally small, serving a finite number of people in a specific way, where’s the push to scale coming from?
Georgia identifies this tension throughout the report.
A tiny minority of the spaces she profiled decided to franchise. Most didn’t.
They’re asking: what’s working here, could it work in other neighbourhoods, and how do we share this without losing what makes it work?
There’s a big question there about being intentionally small versus spreading the love.
About staying local versus influencing policy.
About building one brilliant thing versus creating pathways for others to build their own versions.
Georgia’s choosing both.
Playhood stays site-specific in North London.
The report goes to the House of Lords.
The model stays adaptive.
The policy ideas get amplified.
What’s Next (And Why It Matters)
Georgia’s exploring intergenerational co-location next.
Not just childcare alongside coworking.
Eldercare too.
Bringing in that third generation.
Connecting people across ages, needs, and types of care.
There are so many great sites in our communities already that we could be doing more with.
This isn’t about building new infrastructure from scratch.
It’s about reimagining what existing spaces can hold.
She’s heading to the House of Lords in June with policy learnings.
Taking the findings beyond the coworking walls.
Working with academics.
Influencing how we fund, license, and support these models at a structural level.
Her website, playhood.club, is where updates land.
This isn’t static research. It’s a rolling conversation about how we modernise the infrastructure around family life.
For space operators: this episode is your primer on whether childcare integration makes strategic sense. Not as an amenity. As infrastructure.
For parents: this is permission to want something different. To stop accepting the binary. To look for spaces that let you be whole.
For policymakers: Georgia’s naming the fixable barriers. The rest is political will.
Links & Resources
Georgia Norton’s Work
* Georgia on LinkedIn
* Playhood website
* Gen Z Doesn’t Need ‘Severance’—They Need Shared Spaces for Work and Care
* New America report: The Case for Child Care Plus Coworking: A Model that Empowers Families and Neighbourhoods.
Spaces Mentioned
* Work + Play Hub, Edinburgh
Projects & Community 2026
* Coworking Operators Weekend Feb 6th
* Unreasonable Connection Live! London Coworking Assembly Forum Feb 24th
* Workspace Design Show London 25th / 26th Feb
* Coworking Alliance Summit 4th March
* RGCS Symposium Berlin 5th and 6th March
* European Coworking Day: 6th May
* London Coworking Assembly
* European Coworking Assembly
* LinkedIn Coworking Group
Bernie’s Projects
* London Coworking Assembly 5-Day AI Crash Course for Coworking Spaces
* Connect with Bernie on LinkedIn
🧠 One More Thing
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