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Context
The Netherlands has one of the highest proportions of independent workers in the European Union. At the same time, there exists an oversupply within the office market, resulting in a significant amount of vacant office buildings. Hence coworking office spaces were selected to be located in the city of Eindhoven. The project explored how spatial criteria and openly available geographic information could support the early screening of possible locations. The original work was completed in 2020 and is presented here as a MADESAI retrospective report.
The challenge
The challenge was to translate the characteristics associated with a coworking location into criteria that could be represented and tested spatially. These included access to eateries, finance centres, parking, leisure facilities, public transport and appropriate land use, together with distance from major roads. The analysis also needed to document how the data was collected and prepared, how the criteria changed during modelling, and how the individual spatial operations were combined to produce a shortlist.
MADESAI's role
MADESAI is publishing the original study, report and project evidence as a retrospective demonstration of GIS-based site screening. The original wording, maps, tables, references and reported findings remain available in the complete report reader. The work collected data using the query feature of OSM (OpenStreetMap), QuickOSM and QuickMapServices. Amersfoort / RD New EPSG:28992 was used as the projection system for the layers and project. Buffer, union, difference, intersection, field calculator, selection by attribute and minimum bounding geometry were used in the analysis. The intersection was used to find the places which satisfy all the conditions.
Outputs
- Location-selection criteria for coworking office spaces.
- OpenStreetMap-derived GIS data layers.
- A QGIS graphical processing model.
- Intermediate buffer and intersection results.
- Four prospective areas rendered by the model.
- Three final locations carried forward after review.
- An interactive web viewer of the original QGIS result layer.
- Downloadable QGIS project and graphical-model files.
Practical value
The practical value lies in demonstrating how qualitative location requirements can be translated into spatial criteria, processed through a graphical GIS workflow, and communicated as a shortlist for further investigation. Among the four prospective areas produced by the model, one residential area was not selected. Three locations were carried forward around Achtseweg Zuid, Glaslaan and Ir Kalffstraat.
Responsible boundary
This MADESAI retrospective presents the original 2020 study and its reported findings. The underlying OpenStreetMap features, property information, accessibility conditions and market context have not been refreshed. The original GIS analysis did not establish financial feasibility, secure property availability, validate present-day planning conditions or make a current investment recommendation. The output should be read as a historical spatial shortlist and a demonstration of the GIS workflow.