Coworkout

Shofuso (“Pine Breeze Villa”) is a Japanese house built in a traditional seventeenth-century shoin-zukuri style — no structural nails, a deeply-gabled bark roof, a beautiful veranda that leads directly out into the garden.

The house was designed and built in 1954 in Japan, and assembled in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. It was moved to Fairmount Park in 1958, on the site of the Japanese Pavilion in the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. You can see lots of hyperventilating about how awesome the house is on my blog, but suffice it to say that it’s an incredibly beautiful spot. I mean, it has a BRIDGE leading from the house to the tiny, detatched teahouse. A bridge that goes over a TINY STREAM. It’s just amazing.

I’m not 100% sure that Shofuso will be a great spot for coworkout — can we find a good spot to sit? What about power? At the absolute minimum, it’ll be a hell of a photo op, and then we’ll move to Ohio House. But if it works out, it’ll be great.

Particulars

• Wi-Fi: Shared EvDO, thin pipe
• Power: Standard 110v grid, available outside the house.
• Restrooms: Port-o-san on site.
• Handicapped access: No.
• Dogs: Not permitted.
• Food: None on site.
• Coffee: None on site I think we’ll visit Ohio House for food and coffee.

Directions

Shofuso is on the grounds of the Horticulture Center, in West Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, near the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Montgomery Drive.

You can plug “4700 States Drive, Philadelphia, PA” into your GPS, then follow signs to the “Japanese House” once you get into Fairmount Park. There are also directions on the Shofuso website.

Here’s a Google map:

What to Bring

Bring:

• Socks. You must take off your shoes and put them in a rack before entering the house.
• A fully-charged battery. There are no power points inside the house — I plan on working off a full charge, then heading outside the house to find a plug.
• Killer abs. I’m used to sitting on the floor to work, but I’m always leaning against a wall. Here, the walls are important murals. On paper. So… there’s no leaning. Sitting cross-legged, with your computer on your lap? I have no idea how we’ll work this out, but it should be fun to try.

Internet speed

I’ll measure the EvDO speed and post the results here once I do:

From New York, NY:

From Parsippany, NJ:

From Toronto, ON: