Coliving Communitythe open directory to find
purposeful [co]workations and stays

living spaces 🏡
giving convenience and connection 🙌
as a regular part of our daily lives
amongst others sharing purpose ⚡️

Coliving takes many forms, all the way from grassroots collaborative houses sharing potluck dinners, to commercial serviced micro-studios with restaurants. Coliving spaces each have their own character, yet share fundamental principles.

purpose ⬄ proximitycollectivity ⬄ convenience

The use of coliving spaces goes beyond being a mere house, welcoming us as a home, to include work, learning, wellbeing and impact. You'll find that spaces are either or both:

Coliving always provides spaces for members to gather together, notably at least a shared kitchen with lounge, and/or a workspace; yet usually much more besides…

Buildings and layouts vary, you'll find renovated homes with a familiar layout, through to huge purpose designed new buildings that favour less private space (from fully self-contained studios all the way to sleeping pods) for more common space with facilities such as gyms, movie screenings, and pool decks.

Some spaces have a community facilitator whom takes a lead connecting everyone and organising events; in others activities are ad-hoc amongst everyone through participation. Whether communal meals, accountability standups or laundry discos…

Coliving is offered as a single inclusive price, furnished, with linens and housekeeping, yet no long-term contract so it's convenient to not only move in, but also move on.

Coliving is definitely not…

A stereotypical flat/house share, hostel, hotel, or apartment complex, in which anyone is simply thrown together by chance and circumstance, as opposed with purposeful reason. Coliving is nowadays most commonly used to describe properties offering just some shared facilities, resulting in routines being predominantly in individual private spaces, with only ad-hoc shared connections and facilitation.

This is different from a purposeful coliving community having routine interaction, where members choose to join — not just because a space is convenient. Facilities do not define coliving, a purposeful and welcoming community does.

Since its conception in the 2000's coliving has stood for community–living. But with many new landlords and developers seeing benefits in using layouts that reduce unit size to improve revenues, this need and reward of community and common spaces can be missed.

In true communities the little details and their member's involvement make the distinction obvious. You can test this simply by asking members «why are you here?» If most only answer because it's nice/in budget/well located, then it is safe to say they are not sharing any purpose together and the community may be non-functional.

⭐️We encourage use of the coliving community phrase or marque to identify spaces having purposeful connections amongst their members, and not simply with a coliving offer.

Some different types

Learn more about differences between the types of coliving in this article by Peter Fabor. For a more general backgrounder as a guest or member we recommend this article by Outsite, and as an operator or manager this post by Jacob Jay†.

Some different approaches

What's convenient about coliving?

Finding people amongst whom to live a fun and interesting life is hard. We can therefore say that coliving spaces bring together likeminded people by making them easier to find.

We can also say that transparency improves convenience too. Not all houses and communities are the same, and often with other types of accommodation you don't find out until after moving in. Transparency on values and the kind of people in a space, not to mention pricing and what's included, avoids wasting effort.

The most obvious convenience is that a space is already setup, equipped and ready to welcome us. Often with linens and housekeeping, operated as a fully-inclusive service (sometimes referred to a Housing-as-a-Service).

What's a purposeful or intentional space?

All coliving communities comprise members having at least some nominal common purpose, as without such commonality you simply find a shared space with essentially random people. Some spaces make extra effort to align members and enact living together…

We most often see a why simply being a wish to avoid isolation, to have good friends to work amongst (e.g. with a coworking space) and loosely sharing experiences amongst independent lifestyles. Therefore all coliving spaces have at least some shared purpose. This contrasts intentional communities in which we more tightly focus around a common lifestyle.

An effect of any differentiation, is that intentional communities (including cohousing) tend to have long-term involvements and membership criterion to ensure community consistency, whilst purposeful communities and coliving is generally more flexible and open, yet this cannot be assumed.

Neither approach is exclusive and both may be enacted, such as a home which intentionally curates its members, yet supports a purposeful community amongst them. Every community should be considered unique, and we each may suit one more than another.

In a purposeful space there is more diversity and thus opportunity for connections and ideas so tend to be oriented around professional activities, whilst in an intentional space there is more immersion and potential for deeper learning, such as in pursuing permaculture.

Obviously the larger a space is, the less proximity there is with others, thus social groups may organise around floors or apartments, rather than the whole community, yet still gather and bump into each other. Such spaces tend however to be neither even though they still offer some of the benefits.

Is there a difference with cohousing?


cohousing
  • community of neighbours
  • high commitment with purchase
  • independent units
  • few shared facilities used by discretion
coliving
  • community of housemates
  • low commitment with rental
  • smaller private rooms (or dorms)
  • common spaces integral to routines

These attributes are not exclusive as there are always exceptions, indeed microstudios can increasingly be found in coliving developments, and mixed models using ownership alongside rentals could emerge — all perhaps unhelpfully blurring definitions, yet increasing our options for better living.

Coliving brings people closer together by virtue of proximity across many aspects of life. Living under the same roof engenders more collaboration, than simply by virtue of being neighbours.

An example is that for independent units, meals may be intentionally collaborative just once a week, whilst in a coliving space they will be participatory most of the time simply because the kitchen has to be used by all (and is designed for this), thus encouraging interaction around it. The same for all other common spaces (workspaces, living rooms, even laundry).

Launching or running your own space?

In the spirit of openness and connection there's a community of operators ready to guide you in the right direction! Two associations organise regular meetings and knowledge shares: Co-Liv (perhaps more oriented towards residential and scale) and Coliving Hub (maybe a little more oriented towards destinational), both have their own online communities, but there's also some groups on Facebook: Coliving (users and operators; mostly homes), and Coliving Space Founders (mostly destinational), not to mention various country specific ones. You can also follow and join in discussions with thought leaders such as Carlos from Startup Embassy.

If your space's community is connected amongst itself and facilitated by you and your team, then why not announce yourself as a coliving community using our marque!

Styleguide for editors

The correct use of the term coliving is without a hyphen, the same as for coworking and endorsed by publishers. Gui Perdrix wrote about some reasoning, however whilst the English language generally hyphenates compound words during their early use, as time passes the hyphens are dropped and the concept thus transitions from being compound to discrete. Notably for the words coworking and coliving, their hyphenated use can imply different meanings across generations, thus use without a hyphen avoids ambiguity.



†This page is written and maintained by Jacob Jay for the Coliving Identity Working Group, have suggestions or feedback? collaborate@coliving.community