Business owners, entrepreneurs and anyone wanting to save expenses on office space in pricey Hong Kong now have a bold, fresh, exciting concept to profit from and enjoy.


The two brothers Theo and Jackel Cheung were working together in 2012 to revitalize an 85-room serviced apartment in Shanghai. “The value of the serviced apartment then doubled and this project made us realize that we complement each other really well and we are very good at revitalizing old underperforming properties,” say the pair

“After exiting the senior management roles of a HK public listed company in 2014, we started to look for new ventures and the co-working movement happening in Asia and Australia caught our attention. This discovery stimulated us to think of utilising our expertise in property development, asset management and F&B to come up with a unique co-working space that offers extra values to the new working generation.”

Smart Solutions that Work

Many industry players focus their resources on supporting startups through a variety of means such as incubation and accelerator programs. “While we reckon that startups are important stakeholders of the industry, what we target is not purely startups but a complete change in the working lifestyle. We believe in the change in working method and the flexibility that this change requires, and we are utilising our skills to provide fun spaces that challenge the way we used to work. The values we offer to this wider customer base are a lifestyle co-working community with extraordinarily smart and comfortable work environment that facilitates collaboration, creativity and productivity. Hence, we decided to stay our course in developing our own uniqueness.”

Fun with Creativity

“Given our versatile experience in property development, asset management as well as F&B, we understand the needs, the strengths and the weaknesses of both the customer side and the operator side. We have empathy for both sides and are able to create the optimal co-working environment that can best fit the needs of the stakeholders,” they say.

“We put fun into work. We produce spaces that enhance communication and hence community to form. We look for people who are highly motivated and willing to share to our community to join us and we have the skills to revitalize underperforming spaces into stylish functional spaces at affordable costs.

“playground.work is unique in the sense that we are providing a ‘lifestyle co-working community’ that brings a ‘happy working’ culture to our members. For example, our co-working space in Sheung Wan is composed of different activity based zones to cater for different purposes: dedicated private offices, hot desks, meeting rooms, casual meeting areas, phone booths and various meeting/ office equipment for work, plus a cafe with onsite barista, a bouldering wall, table soccer, game arcade and even a shower for pleasure and leisure. Members can enjoy themselves at different zones as they wish and at their own pace.”

Flexible, Fun & Tasty Treats!

As smart and comfortable work space is one of their priorities, hot desks in playground.work are carefully designed with adjustable LED panels. Members can choose to move their laptop monitor to the large LED screen at a higher position, which helps reduce muscle pain that frequently comes with intensive computer working.

“Our cafe@playground.work is an all-time favourite for members. With the onsite barista, the cafe is capable of offering a range of handcrafted coffee. We also offer snacks and a selection of beverages to accommodate different tastes.”

Solutions-Orientated

The pair say that their biggest obstacle is the frequent short term lease tactics that landlords use in Hong Kong hoping to maximize their property value among never-ending rising rent. “We overcome this obstacle by educating landlords to JV with us and together we can come up with win-win solutions. There are also issues arising from the entry of the Unicorn that provides 3 months’ free usage as incentives trying to acquire our members. To cope with the market competition, we provide special offers to retain the members whom we think can make significant contribution to our community.

“We want to be able to put our space into special heritage building to showcase our skills and to bring something even more exciting to our members.

Though playground.work is still a new brand in the market, we believe our creativity, flexibility and persistency will be the key factors that drive good results. Persistency is particularly important – persistency in believing your vision even when the short term environment is against you and that there are always more solutions than problems.”

For additional information, please visit http://playground.work


Hong Kong’s Business Leaders share market and interest intelligence in the pages of HKMVC 2018