Co-living is a residential community living model, referring to a modern form of group housing that has significantly transformed London life and the UK as a whole. The notion of co-living has even more so been popularized by the rise of housing startups, with many offering affordable housing in homes and apartments alike shared by a handful of adult housemates.
The population of young professionals working and desiring to reside in London continues to grow at a fast and ever-evolving rate. Although the demand for employment generally remains the same, with many individuals earning between £25-35K per annum, it is evident that individuals who belong to this age group continue to find it difficult to afford to live on their own, especially if they wish to stay local and within reach of their workplace, without feeling the need to sacrifice comfort and high specification in order to obtain a more affordable rent. Many co-living projects make it paramount to assure tenants that their homes are comfortable, stylish, adaptable, and harbor up-to-date technological infrastructure.
In this article, we will showcase a handful of co-living spaces in London and what they are doing to help combat the issue of rising urban density and real estate prices, as well as their features and amenities.
Gravity Co-Living is on a mission to transform the way that young professionals, students, and aspiring entrepreneurs live, work, and engage in major cities across the world. From its inception, Gravity has focused on creating unique co-living experiences, offering modern, adaptable spaces with one principle at its core: community. They aim to focus on enhancing the lives of their members by creating a social living experience guided by their four pillars of community: unconventional design, professional growth, meaningful engagement, and personal well-being.
Gravity aims to disrupt the renting industry by servicing the entire renting lifecycle that promotes healthier, happier, and more meaningful lifestyles. They remove the pain points from renting, offering residents a process that is easy and relaxed offering monthly rent bills with all utilities included and flexible contract lengths. This added ease in the renting process means that young professionals and those alike can invest time into their work and craft instead of having to worry about the intricacies that come with finding a place to live in the bustling city.
The co-living company has four properties across London, including two in Camden, one in Finsbury Park, another in Hounslow, and its fifth property located in Reading.
Close to the River Thames in Bermondsey, The Italian Building by Mason & Fifth is another example of co-living that has been consciously created to strengthen communities and boost well-being from the inside out. Mason & Fifth is one community and a network of transformational spaces that aims to surround patrons with good people, fresh thinking, and well-being expertise right on your doorstep.
Having sustainably re-purposed a classic Edwardian building in partnership with architects Stiff and Trevillion and interior designers Studio Clement, Mason & Fifth provide private studios with everything residents would require and a spacious living room for the whole house to share.
Their homes take pride in maintaining the beautiful features of the building's period, showcasing cast iron gates and green-framed windows, working with social enterprise Goldfinger to make all of their joineries from up-cycled timber, sourcing vintage treasures alongside modern design classics and using natural, chemical-free and sustainably sourced materials wherever possible. Alongside their monthly program of events, Mason & Fifth has also designed a daily holistic well-being program to nurture housemates inside and out.
Pollen CoLiving successfully follows suit with the model of co-living as its aim is to drive innovation in a way that also addresses relevant social, economic, and environmental issues. Their main focus has been on secondary residential areas of Southeast London with favorable connections to central London, focusing on a target market of young professionals typically between the ages of 25-35 years old, as these are the type of housemates that are increasingly attracted to a communal living style.
Pollen CoLiving restore homes from the ground up, taking each building back to brick and with the help of their architects, intentionally design every home to create bright, open, efficient spaces. All of the homes at Pollen CoLiving have generous and attractive communal areas with outdoor space to facilitate their communal living ethos, with dining room space fit to accommodate all the housemates to get together over dinner, drinks, or a cup of tea or coffee in the garden.
Each home has a strong emphasis on respecting the character of the building and enhancing natural light, energy efficiency, sustainability, introducing new technology and innovative materials and creating communal areas, and with all bills taken care of, housemates can get on with the demands of a professional lifestyle, free from the administrative hassle involved with conventional rental.
LifeX is another co-living solution offering beautifully designed and spacious shared apartments. With apartments centrally located in some of the most popular areas in the capital, namely, Islington, Shoreditch, and Bethnal Green, each home is thoughtfully designed with a Nordic human-centric approach, making them perfect for socializing and accessing transport links for your daily commuter needs.
The biggest value of co-living is access to the community and ease of living. With the rise of urban density and real estate prices, especially in a city as lively and bustling as London, this form of living is quickly gaining popularity across the globe as people, young professionals, in particular, are adapting to increasingly value living flexible and convenient lifestyles.
Although this article has covered different types of modern co-living spaces that come in many different shapes and styles, the one thing these concepts all have in common is the desire to offer a more community-oriented lifestyle and allow individuals the breathing space to be more present in their respective demands of recreational and working life.
