Co-living is a way to live and share an apartment with other like-minded people. Co-living is fast gaining in popularity across the globe as the younger urban generation increasingly puts more value on flexibility and convenience of living.
Itās important to note that modern co-living comes in all shapes and forms. The term has been used loosely for different kinds of living arrangements: from ābig box co-livingā buildings with hundreds of small pod-style rooms to family-style apartments turned co-living homes (think of the apartment from āFriendsā).
What all these co-living arrangements share is the willingness to create a place to live that both provides some private space as well as plenty of shared space to facilitate community engagements.
There are a few colliding trends that are increasingly powering the co-living movement:
Modern co-living is an evolution of various age-old concepts. The cohousing concept, for example, started in 1960s Denmark. Another example of an early co-living concept is a famous minimalist shared living space called Isokon which was started in London in 1933.
There are many different types of co-living. Co-living for students, co-living for artists, co-living for digital nomads and even co-living for entrepreneurs.
At LifeX, for example, we decided to focus on inclusive and flexible co-living homes for young professionals. We house people from 50+ nationalities; from chefs to artists and all the way to digital creators.
This very much depends on whether you organise a flatshare yourself or you live at a professionally managed co-living place.
At LifeX co-living, for example, we provide cleaning of shared spaces several times a week (kitchen, living room, bathrooms) and the private spaces once a week. This is designed in a way that you can always rely on coming home to a clean apartment.
This depends on the co-living provider. At LifeX we focus on providing co-living homes for 4-8 people and making the stay as stress-free as possible. This means we provide regular cleaning of the apartments, shared basic supplies and flexible terms.
LifeX focuses on what we call co-living homes. We find big apartments in central city areas that are often too expensive for families. Sometimes these apartments are even empty. These apartments are usually 150-400 square metres and become a comfortable home for 4-8 people in LifeX.
A flatshare is usually an informal agreement between a group of people to share an apartment. These are standard student living arrangements for example.
Co-living, on the other hand, most often adds a bit more community and shared services to the equation. At LifeX, for example, we make sure that each apartment has both a big kitchen and a living room to help facilitate social interactions.