This article was originally published in Turkish in Manifold on 7 September 2019. It can be accessed here.
Similar to shared offices and working spaces that have been in demand for economic and social reasons, examples of shared housing spaces have been on the rise. This type of housing consisting of modules within one structure is referred to as co-living spaces. They provide an alternative especially to insufficient housing in large cities and economic repercussions of living alone. In high-density cities where demand for housing is immense, co-living intends to act as a partial solution to the rent/quality discrepancy that has gone out of hand. Co-living buildings generally consist of usually minimal private spaces (bedroom, bathroom) and larger shared spaces (kitchen, dining area, living room, office, etc.). In a broad sense, it is aimed at new professional members of Generation Y, otherwise known as millennials, who are deemed to be the most valuable working class today. According to researcher and designer Matthew Stewart: “… co-living is the housing equivalent of co-working, aimed at solvent, yet asset poor, young professionals. It rests on the premise that Generation Y’ers are predominantly single, want flexibility, convenience, and value authentic ‘experiences’ over material possessions.”[1]
Sheltering/working/living/experiencing spaces that are integrated into one structure have similarities with more conventional housing projects. Housing blocks provide similar services; gym facilities on a designated floor of the building, a terrace on the roof level, cafes, pubs or restaurants and social spaces included in multiple or singular housing applications, offers of memberships at exclusive clubs for more luxury housing dwellers, etc. All these features may be being packaged and marketed for a new generation under the name of co-living. The similarities between co-living buildings and newer housing examples can even be extended to hotels. Although the services in housing may not be as intricate and immediate, combining small private rooms with larger spaces with varied functions can be considered another example of co-living. Besides these examples, co-living is still not a new thing; there are historical examples that are also comparable. Renting a room in a large family’s house, distant relatives or children of family friends coming to live at the house for long periods, different people renting rooms in row houses, apartments with many tenants that have a common lobby, etc.[2]; co-living can be considered as the version of these examples revamped for the current urban and economic models. In these examples, besides sharing a space, experiences are shared as well; people look out for each other, they form a community. This social aspect of past co-living situations led to the emphasis of a sense of community and unity in the modern co-living applications.
Starcity, started by Jon Dishotsky, plans to realise an ambitious co-living building developed to address the housing problem that is exacerbated by the rapidly increasing workforce in San Jose, USA. This structure, which will be the largest co-living building in the world, will consist of 803 modules in an 18 storey building.[3] San Jose is one of California’s bay area cities where Silicon Valley is fuelled from. The rents are not affordable in general; owning an apartment or a house is economically out of reach for new professionals. The Starcity project approaches this housing crisis with considering affordability. Additionally, the building is not merely a shelter, but has spaces that allow for various activities and most significantly prioritises social interaction.
Starcity and similar co-living units seem to be an extension of dormitory life (“dorm for adults”)[4] and the next step in having roommates/flatmates. With co-living options, people who cannot afford to live by themselves do not need to look for people to rent an appropriate house/apartment. Also, the shared spaces in the buildings eliminate the difficulty of meeting new people after graduation or changing cities. So, co-living is aimed at presumed recent graduates/low experience employees for whom the style of dwelling is not so far removed from university dormitories and in a sense the perpetuation of that type of housing. Living in the same building with people one just meets or already knows from work/school, spending time with them in shared spaces, having a close friend group from the building one lives in, being able to talk to someone one lives with when support is needed are alluring qualities of co-living similar to knowing people in a neighbourhood and looking out for one another.
Community is a concept that has been popular in the real estate industry in recent years. Spaces provided by real estate developers come with a community experience, which is a key marketing element to lure millennials who do not know how to deal with the loneliness of big cities. Matthew Stewart says that “Spatially, this plays out with an emphasis on communal spaces —the kitchen, living room— at the expense of private space, seen as a mere place to sleep.”[5] Another example of co-living that resembles Starcity and offers similar attractions is The Collective, which opened in 2016 in London, UK and has been active for three years, with “Be More Together” as its motto. A resident that has been living there for two years says that “Unfortunately, co-living places are trying to squeeze every living space into the same building, which makes it unliveable for the long-term.”[6] Another former resident suggests that co-living may work on a smaller scale, but the marketed sense of community is non-existent in buildings of this size.[7]
Troy Evans, the founder of Syracuse CoWorks, a co-working space in Syracuse, USA, says that CommonSpace, the co-living part realised in the same building, is “a neighbourhood in a building.”[8] “You’re not staying in your room watching TV all day, you’re eating in the restaurants, going to the coffee shops and the bars, and doing it as a group.”[9] In this instance, 21 flats consisting of 28 square-meter micro units surround shared communal spaces. The socialisation of millennials is not left to chance; working with a ‘social engineer’[10], the formation of a community in the building is curated. How can a community experience that has been configured to the tiniest detail be realistic? How accurately can these projects that offer everything a neighbourhood provides mimic the neighbourhood experience? If one only socialises with people they cohabit with and if the demographics of these buildings are set, how diverse can an interaction, let alone a community, be?
Starcity’s project developer Eli Sokol says: “The San Jose mega-building … will feature ‘vertical neighbourhoods,’ … where residential floors are linked not just by horizontal hallways but by two-story communal spaces, and terraces whose stairs interconnect. ‘This way, a broad array [of] residents from multiple floors can interact and engage with one another socially within the building’s various communal spaces’…”[11] What changes can a new type of vertical neighbourhood bring to urban living? Users will not have to leave their buildings to have the neighbourhood experience after spending their days at the workplace (or in the common work area in their buildings). Then how can these structures, which cannot copy the texture of a neighbourhood no matter how high in diversity the structure and the experience are designed, change spatial experience and communication?
Matthew Stewart compares co-living implementations with Isokon Building and Kensal House, modernist interwar housing examples located in London. He claims that “The most alarming feature is this ‘new way of living’, is in fact a commodified old way of living; … steeped in the language of modernism yet robbed of its radical social intent.”[12] Cynical minds argue that the co-living trend presents itself as a solution to the housing crisis but seeks only to profit through this problem. Time will tell if co-living is just a trend or the next step in the evolution of housing. Meanwhile, as examples increase, it will be interesting to observe how a new form of neighbourhood that is developed vertically will affect urban, local and community experiences.
References:
[1] Stewart, M. (2016, 2 December). “The Collective is Not a New Way of Living – It’s an Old One, Commodified”. Failed Architecture.
[2] Strauss, I. E., (2016, 26 September). “The Hot New Millennial Housing Trend Is a Repeat of the Middle Ages”. The Atlantic.
[3] Holder, S. (2019, 7 June). “The Largest Co-Living Building in the World Is Coming to San Jose”. CityLab.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Stewart, M. (2016, 2 December). “The Collective is Not a New Way of Living – It’s an Old One, Commodified”. Failed Architecture.
[6] Coldwell, W. (2019, 3 September). “‘Co-living’: the end of urban loneliness – or cynical corporate dormitories?” The Guardian.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Moriarty, R. (2019, 9 January). “See inside soon-to-expand Syracuse co-working, living center (photos)”. Syracuse.com.
[9] Semuels, A. (2015, 6 November). “Dorms for Grownups: A Solution for Lonely Millennials?” The Atlantic.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Holder, S. (2019, 7 June). “The Largest Co-Living Building in the World Is Coming to San Jose”. CityLab.
[12] Stewart, M. (2016, 2 December). “The Collective is Not a New Way of Living – It’s an Old One, Commodified”. Failed Architecture.
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