The sharing economy of space? Pay-per-minute venues and the future of the post-functionalist city

This paper explores a new form of public place—multifunctional pay-per-minute venues, simultaneously serving as a shared living room, a coworking space, a self-service coffeeshop and a cultural centre, all combined in one physical space. The first establishment of this kind, Ziferblat, promoting the idea of ‘the shared economy of space’, opened in 2011 in Moscow and in just a couple of years became a global franchise that inspired many other placemakers across the globe. I will discuss this phenomenon in the context of a wider urban trend—the rise of the post-functionalist city (Di Marino and Lapintie, 2017), blurring the boundaries between home, work, and leisure. Drawing on a comparative ethnographic research, conducted in four Ziferblat branches in Moscow, London, and Manchester, I will critically examine the opportunities and challenges arising from mixing different urban functions under one roof. In a nutshell, I argue that, despite giving people more freedom and control over their use of public places, the post-functionalist approach creates many clashes and misframings, ranging from personal anxieties and interpersonal conflicts to various legal issues associated with licensing. Furthermore, putting work in the centre of the post-functionalist discourse feeds into the neoliberal ethos of 24x7 productivity.