LABS House — Local services in London

I've enjoyed working here with my team. This is a well-located, modern-feeling (Shoreditch-style semi-industrial) building buzzing with life composed of technology freelancers and entire SMEs.

Any kind of communal environment is a tough one to manage oweing to the variety of people that inhabit it. Having said that, the LABS House team do a bang-up job of keeping things running as smoothly as possible and clean. This includes their IT team who have been attentive. There's a lovely bagel breakfast served on some Wednesdays just beyond the lifts; a nice gesture by the LABS staff which is appreciated.

A star is lost primarily because of their obviously tight budget leading to quality being compromised. I refer particularly to the thin walls of the work environment: If you're in an office and you're adjacent to another company, it's quite possible you'll be able to hear every word they're saying without having to press your ear against the wall. If you're very unfortunate, your meeting room may be adjacent to a company that likes to play music as part of its ambience, or there may even be a toilet where someone's gone for a number two whilst you're carefully dealing with high profile stakeholders! If you suffer from misophonia, there'll likely be rattling airconditioning ventilators to tolerate as well. The last negative is some minor poor design decisions to the layout (e.g. heavy push doors that swing into other doors potentially crushing someone between them). The arrangement of toilets seems to vary on each floor too so spending time discovering which ones offer the most privacy and cleanliness is worthwhile.

Overall, a decent workspace barring the...

I’ve spent a month with a roaming membership here. Pros: Location is really good. Easy to find lunch, accessible and right in the middle of the action. Well kept, clean. Good temperature control, it’s not warm but also not freezing. Good coffee, snacks, microwaves and kitchen access. The gym is really nice, modern and quiet. If you go during the day, chances you’ll be there on your own.

Cons: Having to use the common spaces means you are relegated to the noisiest, most uncomfortable parts of the building. You have access to a couple floors, but there is only one space (on the first floor) that has actual work desks. People with offices constantly crowd up the common spaces to have 1-1s, sales calls, water cooler chats, etc. Most of these floors have call booths but people prefer yelling into their phones in an airy, open space I suppose – people working there be damned. The “maximum of 3 people” per company is obviously not a real thing. Everyday you’ll have groups of 4,5,6 people or more sitting together, clearly working for the same company. It has happened multiple times where large groups of 15 or 20 people just randomly barged into the working space and decided to have a workshop, meeting or random event. I have no clue how this happens. Wifi is mostly good, but not blazing fast. Dropped a few times at unfortunate moments. As others mentioned in their reviews, the staff isn’t al that friendly. The music is also pretty loud. You can’t get anything shipped there if you don’t have an office. People will bring in random dogs, hopefully you aren’t allergic or too...

It took a long time for building management to work our kinks and it's still going on over a year later but a bit better. For the first six month they were super defensive and passive aggressive every time our operations manager brought issues to their attention. I think because of this, the vibe of the place wasn't the friendliest or most social. We felt it was pretty insular for the most part. They never refurbed the loo's properly or change the flush button so EVERYDAY I went to the bathroom to find a mess in the toilet because it didn't flush properly. It was gross and embarrassed us when guests came for professional meetings. We complained about this all the time and nothing was done about them. Also, the ceiling tiles were mouldy. The "soundproof" phone booths and conference rooms are anything but! You hear everything! Also they too often close the upper co-working floor for events and we're not allowed to use them. Once a month is one thing but it was all the time. The Pro's: Great location and the interiors are trendy looking, enough to impress people when they visit which is good. Also there is a nice restaurant with good snacks as well, a gym and they do free breakfast...