It’s Thursday afternoon at Hub Melbourne and I’m eating hot cross buns with a professional Swedish poker player and the founder of a catering business that provides opportunities for homeless people to get into the workforce.

Welcome to the eclectic world of co-working. Hub Melbourne is a trailblazer for a collaborative working trend that has been enthusiastically embraced by start-ups in the US and Europe and is now starting to take hold in Australia.

Perched at the serious end of Melbourne’s Bourke Street, Hub Melbourne has more the feel of an incongruous hippy retreat than the future working template for the engine room of the Australian economy.

Casually dressed people slouch at squiggly desks or chat over coffee in an open-plan kitchen. Much like a kindergarten for grown-ups, pieces of card adorned with pictures of members are strung up over the communal dining table. Members have written what they need from the working space and what they can provide to it on their mini profiles.

Around 80 entrepreneurs and NGOs use the Hub space, with a further 100 coming for the regular talks and workshops held at the space. Brad Krauskopf, who founded Hub Melbourne, has plans to renovate an adjoining ballroom to hold many more.

Hub Melbourne launched in January last year but has only recently started to take on members. Its philosophy is simple – to provide a physical space for co-working, meetings and events.

There is a mandate, as part of the building’s lease, for participants to work towards social good, but most members are profit-making start-ups, who rub shoulders with big business, NGOs and government agencies.

Krauskopf started up Hub Melbourne after working at Hub Madrid while travelling in Europe. Upon returning to Australia, he realised that there was a need for an area for start-ups to gather, share ideas and enjoy low-cost desk space.

The Hub brand is headquartered in Vienna, Austria and has 28 outlets around the world. The Melbourne arm, the first in Australia, pays an ongoing percentage of its profits to use the name. However, Krauskopf rejects the suggestion he is a franchisee.

“That term invokes a cookie cutter and controlled model that isn’t the case,” he says. “It’s amazing how different each Hub looks like around the world.”

Collaboration is at the heart of Hub Melbourne, Krauskopf says. “Like any co-working, you can come in and do your work and speak to no one, but the real value is in the collaboration and the support.

“We literally designed the place with the members in mind. The ballroom space is 400 square metres and it will be a multi-purpose theatre, co-working and arts space. It will facilitate many more connections between people.”

“About 50% of people come to the Hub for learning and collaboration. They may have an office at home, but they come here to learn. We have about 20 gatherings and activities a week. For example, we have had a banking clinic and a lecture on social media. We have Mindful Mondays, where there’s a meditation class.”

Hub Melbourne has a diverse membership. The youngest member is 15 and the oldest is 80. Although the space is crammed with bespectacled, serious young people gazing at Macs, Krauskopf claims that just 10% are tech start-ups, with an average member age of 35.

Hub Melbourne is in a vanguard of co-working spaces that are starting to spark the interest of Australian start-ups. In Sydney, there is Vibewire and The Hive also offers a place to share ideas with other budding entrepreneurs.

However, Krauskopf argues that the shift isn’t just towards the physical sharing of space with other businesses. It’s about working together, rather than separately.

“The industry is in its infancy in Australia but it’s becoming almost impossible to do anything in isolation these days,” he says. “The world is too complex and the skills you need in a business are too diverse.”

“People want new, flexible ways of working and this is the result. There’s also the environmental side to it – the carbon footprint is eight times less than normal.”

“We often think about who we want in the space. If you’re a web designer, it doesn’t really help you to have 20 other web designers around you. We look for gaps. We want lawyers and accountants.”

But aren’t businesses a little reticent of conducting sales calls and discussing IP-sensitive ideas with dozens of strangers sitting around them?

“Well, maybe, but in a way businesses don’t really have a choice anymore,” says Krauskopf. “You need so many different skills in your business that you need to open it up now. It’s a funny set up in offices, where you are all the same. Here, you are with people who aren’t like you. It’s also more fun.”

“Australia is more conservative than Europe and the US. Businesses like to keep their cards close to their chests. But we don’t throw out ideas so that they are stolen. We throw out ideas so that they can be shared and collaborated on.”

Krauskopf’s vision may seem idealistic, but there’s no doubt that he’s banking on the growing trend for working in this way. He spent $200,000 starting up Hub Melbourne and is planning to expand the business to Sydney and Brisbane.

Members pay by the hour, or, less commonly, annually. A block of 10 hours a month costs $60, up to $400 for 100 hours and $600 for unlimited access. If you just fancy turning up to the events rather than take a seat, you can pay $20 a month.

Oddly, there is no lease or contract for members. They pay via direct debit with a 30-day notice period. This flexibility suits Krauskopf just fine – he plans to have around 400 members and extend opening hours to 10.30pm by the end of the year.

Not only does Hub Melbourne rely on a desire for co-working, it’s also based on the idea that irregular hours are now the norm for Australian entrepreneurs. The space simply wouldn’t fit every member at the same time.

Nick Moraitis, co-founder of communications agency Make Believe, has been at Hub Melbourne since September. He comes in two or three times a week to service the Sydney-based business’ clients in Melbourne.

“I tend to focus on my work and chat to people in the kitchen over tea,” he says. “I haven’t been involved in any collaborative projects yet, but I’m open to it.”

“You’re immediately exposed to a network and community of people. You don’t have to spend your first month when starting up looking for the space, plugging in the telephone, waiting for Telstra to install the internet – you can get to work straight away.”

But don’t you want to work in private sometimes? And don’t clients react in bemusement when they have to elbow their way past an RMIT representative to sit next to you for a meeting?

“It’s challenging to have private conversations here,” he admits. “I’ve got to the point where I don’t think people are listening, when they are.”

It would be great if there was a private meeting space here, a soundproof meeting room or something like that.

“But most of the conversations you think are confidential are fine. If someone overhears something they may be able to help you out with something. It’s not a negative thing.”

Paul Szymkowiak, who works for smart energy meter start-up Smarter Energy Groups, is a committed fan of co-working. He says that by meeting people at Hub Melbourne, he has gained vital links to government and big industry players, such as Tru Energy.

“We’re just starting up so it’s economical from a rent point of view to be here. I’m a big believer in co-working – I’ve also worked at Inspire9 in Richmond, which is another great community,” he says.

“There’s a real creative, cognitive function to a space like this. You come in with a problem you’re grappling with as a start-up and you talk to people about it and five solutions are thrown at you. That extra bandwidth is amazing.”

“It’s also more fluid than an office environment. In an office you assume roles and functions and you don’t cross them, but here there’s none of that structure. Someone who is a graphic designer may answer a management question for you, which would normally never happen.”

As if to highlight the recent emergence of this area, Rick Chen, co-founder of crowd sourced funding provider Pozible and another tenant, adds: “It’s improving (in Australia). When we started looking for co-working spaces a year ago, there weren’t a lot of options.”

“During that time, it has really boomed. I feel really connected here.”

With that, and with the hot cross buns polished off, it’s time to depart the Hub. Someone has stood up to give an impromptu speech that looks like it should be about organising an organic food tour of NSW, but, instead, words such as “business plan” and “cashflow” are coming out of her mouth.