What’s Happening: The co-working behemoth’s gradual fall from grace is a major blow to corporate landlords and has raised questions about whether co-working makes any business sense. There’s no clear answer, but it may lie in smaller shared spaces tailored to specific needs and communities.

The Download: A few years ago, WeWork’s eccentric founder Adam Neumann promised to reinvent offices and reshape how we work. The company succeeded in making the business of offering flexible, well-designed office space on short leases mainstream, but the waters were always choppy. WeWork fumbled a 2019 IPO, ousted Neumann, shuttered its WeLive and WeGrow ventures, and was bailed out in a multibillion-dollar takeover by SoftBank. Then the pandemic happened, and many believed the co-working industry might be gone for good. Hybrid work, where employees commute to the office only a few days per week, soon became the norm, offering glimmers of optimism for the company once valued at $47 billion with 779 locations worldwide.

Any trace of hope for WeWork’s future evaporated when the co-working juggernaut filed for bankruptcy protection this month. The flailing company negotiated with lenders to make good on debts, but its tanking value—shares fell 90 percent after its financial woes came to light in August—resulted in skipped rent payments, including $95 million it owed in interest. Now, it is seeking to slim down its empire and exit leases, a move set to deal a major blow to office landlords operating in one of the bleakest commercial real estate markets in decades. The exit could be particularly dire in New York, where WeWork operates 50 locations while up to a fifth of the city’s office space is unleased.

WeWork’s demise hardly spells an end to shared office space. Industrious and IWG, a holding company whose portfolio of co-working businesses includes Regus and Spaces, saw major leaps in half-year profit and are already eyeing vacant WeWorks. Members’ clubs and gyms have become peppered with desk space. Niche co-working ventures have also made inroads as workers opt for shared spaces tailored to their communities. The Malin’s relatively modest size and design-forward ethos resonated with Manhattan’s creative class so much that it recently expanded to Brooklyn (pictured below), Nashville, and Houston, with another planned for Austin. Their key to success? “We’re seeking the most relevant neighborhoods in the country,” co-founder Ciaran McGuigan tells Surface, “and tailoring each location to fit the needs of the local professionals and landlord.”

In Their Own Words: Some experts predict landlords will start offering up their own co-working spaces. “There’s nothing special about WeWork that Related or Vornado couldn’t replicate,” Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a real estate professor at Columbia Business School, told the New York Times. “I don’t think co-working is dead at all. The disappearance of WeWork opens up a window of opportunity for landlords to take that space over.”

Surface Says: If any WeWork executives are reading this, we hear furniture auctions are a great way to make some extra cash in a pinch.

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Angelenos may have noticed an artful addition to the skyline: four billboards bearing artworks by Kenneth Tam, Jeffrey Gibson, Nekisha Durrett, and Ross McDonnell. Each contribution is unique, but all are united by Silkroad’s American Railroad project to highlight the contributions of Indigenous and African Americans, and Irish, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants in building the U.S.’s transcontinental railroad.

The installation is presented together with artist collective For Freedoms, which has made its name by using art to drive civic engagement and social change. The collective is a fitting partner to Silkroad, the Yo-Yo Ma–founded musical ensemble and arts nonprofit that prizes cultural collaboration across borders. The billboards are on view in Boyle Heights, Downtown L.A., Echo Park, and Westlake through November 27.

Earlier this month, heavyweights in art and culture headed to New York’s IAC Building to attend the Hirshhorn’s Artist x Artist Gala. Spotlighting the strength of the art community, the event saw more than 20 creative talents nominate fellow artists who have inspired them or influenced their careers, with each pair being honored together. Raising more than a million dollars, the night was also an occasion to reflect on a successful year with the debut of their docuseries “The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist” and the groundbreaking of the revitalized Sculpture Garden by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

When was it? Nov. 6

Where was it? IAC Building, New York

Who was there? Urs Fischer, Awol Erizku, Misha Kahn, Doris Salcedo, Carrie Mae Weems, Tavares Strachan, Jeffrey Meris, Derrick Adams, Mickalene Thomas, Glenn Ligon, and more.

When: Until Nov. 30, 2025

Where: The Huntington Museum, San Marino, CA

What: The Pasadena-born artist is a sensation the world over, and New York’s art enthusiasts have a particular affinity for her assemblages and prints. Her latest show takes her work back out West, specifically to a museum she possesses “fond memories” of visiting as a child. There, she transforms an entire room into an installation dedicated to the enduring impact of nature on her practice. Saar sets the scene with a 17-foot-long vintage canoe and other found objects: wooden bird cages holding singular antlers act as “passengers,” while azure walls, a map of moon phases, and a poem she penned create a soothing, otherworldly scene.

Is it a sculptural tabletop object or a Hanukkah season staple? It turns out, Hannah Polskin’s graphite and brass Menorah sculpture is, intentionally, a bit of both. Its rolling peaks and valleys make for a modern interpretation of the sacred candelabra that will look just as good alight with nine candles as it will during the rest of the year. $1,250

The Robern brand was born in 1968 and has since become an American tradition. To answer customers’ increasingly upscale tastes, Rosa and Bernie Meyers reinvented the standard medicine cabinets and vanities of the day—from cold, steel, utilitarian—into coveted décor.

Surface Says: There’s long been a dearth of aesthetically inclined vanities and medicine cabinets, but Robern’s are fit to complement thoughtfully furnished interiors elsewhere in the home. With options for dwellings from pieds-à-terre to rural farmhouses, there’s something for everyone in the fabricator’s curated lineup.

MSCHF’s first museum retrospective is demanding to be taken seriously.

Snoop Dogg’s surprise “smoke” news turns out to be an ad for stoves.

A once-avid coder considers how AI might ring the death knell for his job.

Bill Gates generously shares his favorite books, courses, and a holiday playlist.