Meet Graham Nelson from Manifold

People Behind the Space: Manifold

Graham Nelson | Founder of Manifold

Manifold redefines the coworking experience in Taranaki, offering a vibrant, community-driven environment across its two locations in New Plymouth and Ōakura. Founded by Graham Nelson, a forward-thinking entrepreneur, Manifold is more than just a workspace—it's a flexible haven designed for creatives, remote workers, contractors, entrepreneurs, and small teams looking to work their way.

In this feature, Graham shares the journey behind Manifold, the inspiration for its unique approach to coworking, and how its lifestyle-focused model supports a thriving regional community.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to create Manifold, Taranaki's award-winning coworking space?

I grew up in Ireland, where I studied fine art but started my career as a UX/web designer. I worked primarily as a freelancer and spent my time between design contracts backpacking around the world. Somewhere along the way I started surfing and in 2006 I landed in New Zealand and found my way, via Wellington, to the coastal surf town of Ngāmotu, New Plymouth.

As a designer, I have always been deeply affected by my work environment. And as a freelancer, I had a firsthand understanding of the problems with working alone - namely isolation and distraction. When I came across the concept of coworking through web design podcasts (as designers and software folk were some of the earliest adopters of coworking) I immediately understood the problem it solved and began to wonder if New Plymouth could benefit from one. After a little deliberation, I followed my slow hunch and Manifold launched in 2015.

Manifold operates in two regional locations - New Plymouth and Ōakura. How do these locations influence the way your spaces operate compared to city-based coworking spaces?

The Manifold community primarily consists of remote workers, freelancers, satellite teams, and the odd digital nomad. While these people care deeply about their work, they also care deeply about their lifestyle; their hobbies, their health, their family, their friends, their community. Nobody seems to work scheduled hours anymore and we see members mix up their working day with breaks for surfing, swimming, school drop-offs, coffee with friends, and all manner of things. So we have tried to design our memberships to suit this way of working.

Can you tell us more about that? How have you designed your memberships to support how people in your region want to work?

A few years ago, we started to notice a pattern in how people were using the space. We spoke to members to understand their needs and decided to test a more flexible consumption-based pricing model.

 In the beginning, it was all very lo-fi: a piece of paper at the front desk that users signed in and out on which we then had to add up and charge out at the end of the month. It proved hugely popular, which was a blessing and a curse as it was incredibly manual for us to manage.

We tried a few off-the-shelf software products but found nothing that eliminated all manual steps for us (for example integrating with our invoicing system), so we decided to build some software ourselves.

Thanks to my UX design background and the skills of a software engineer within the Manifold community we now have a beautiful Sign In app that runs on a tablet at the entrance of both spaces. It pulls our members' profiles from our Coworking Spaces Management Software (OfficeRnD), calculates their daily usage, and pushes this back to our invoicing system (OfficeRnD or Xero) to generate an invoice at the end of each month.

This app also displays the user's running total so there is no bill shock and allows our members to use either of our spaces with minimal friction, supporting their work and lifestyle schedules as well as providing value for money.

We call this plan the Flex Pass. We charge users $7/hour, however it is a monthly membership with a minimum $70 per month commitment. 

It is by far the most popular plan we offer and to the best of my knowledge, we are the only coworking space offering a plan like this - perhaps because of the admin headache that existed before the solution we created.

How would you describe the community at Manifold, and what sets it apart from other coworking communities?

The word tight comes to mind. We are incredibly community-driven and given that we are a regional town, we are somewhat isolated from the centers so we tend to get to know each other quite well.

As a coworking space, we try to provide lots of opportunities for our members to connect, we have a packed events calendar, a mix of entrepreneurship support, general interest, and straight-up parties.

What makes us happiest though, is seeing connections occurring naturally - members discovering a shared interest and then spending the weekend hiking Mount Taranaki for example. Seeing members self-identify as "Manifolders" also puts a smile on our face.

Manifold spaces are known for their balance between work and relaxation. What design elements do you think are most important in creating an inspiring and functional workspace?

Two years ago we moved to a new location in New Plymouth. It was a chance to redo everything based on the seven years of experience we had with coworking. We knew we wanted some core ingredients; collaboration zones, focus areas, and social areas as well as open-plan coworking and private offices.

But it was also important to us that the space felt grounded in its surroundings so we began by taking a look at our rugged and wild coastline. Pulling together mood boards from trips to the beach at various times of the day which ultimately became a compass for every design decision we made. Our color palette contrasts the moody Tasman Sea with vibrant west coast sunsets. We carefully chose materials such as native raw and burnt timber - a nod to driftwood and beach campfires - and installed rich, dense foliage that captures the bush that hugs the coast. And we left concrete exposed, chips'n'all to help the story of the building.

We feel that if people feel at home in their surroundings coupled with a sense of belonging they will do their best work. 

The New Plymouth fitout recently won Bronze in the Best Design Awards for 'Workplace Environments' which we were chuffed about.

What do you enjoy most about running a coworking space in a regional area, and what unique challenges have you faced?

It has to be the people I get to work with, and alongside, that I enjoy most. In the early years in Taranaki, my network was so small but since opening Manifold, it has exploded.

The biggest challenge for us in the early days was education. In 2015 coworking was a reasonably new concept, particularly in the regions, and convincing people of the benefits of coworking (and a coworking community) without any real reference points was hard.

If you could invite any three individuals to spend a day working from Manifold, who would they be and why?

- Andy Warhol: In art school, I was fascinated by Warhol's The Factory, which, if you think about it, was a form of coworking - a bunch of people coming together under one roof to build community, create, and of course, party. I think this might have been some early inspiration for me and I would love to get his take on modern-day coworking. 

- Flight of the Conchords: For Friday drinks vibes, music and laughs

- Mr. Avery: An old teacher. Because I'm sure he thought I was a loser and would amount to nothing. Show him!

What advice would you give to someone looking to establish a coworking space in a regional area?

Build your community first. Don't launch without knowing who's out there and what their needs are. That's not necessarily how we did things but we have learned from our mistakes.

I recently worked with South Taranaki District Council to help get Te W'anake The Foundry off the ground. With that project, one of the first things we did was start a weekly catch-up in a local cafe for entrepreneurs and remote workers.

This helped in a few ways...

- It drew people out of their homes and helped foster connections - always a good thing!

- It helped us understand the size of the market in a smaller regional town which informed the size of the building and fitout we needed.

- It helped us understand the type of user we could expect and their needs e.g. "I make a lot of calls" - better have lots of phone booths then.

- It helped the attendees of the catch-up feel a sense of ownership of the project - they helped shape the space and therefore becoming a member would be a natural progression.

- And when it came to launching the space we had the most important element - the community, giving the space a heartbeat from day one.

A few years on and it's great to see The Foundry thriving in Hāwera Taranaki.

Are there any upcoming projects, expansions, or new features at Manifold that you're excited to share with us?

Yes! I'm very excited for 2025. This year Manifold turns 10, a huge milestone for us that we look forward to celebrating.

We will be expanding our coworking offering in Ngāmotu New Plymouth. We are looking at introducing a food and beverage offering and also considering turning our software into a SaaS product that other spaces could use. I feel it will be a big year for Manifold!