Last week we hosted a coliving meet up at Zoku with our partners Spatial Experience and Salto KS as part of the global Co-Liv meet ups.
We had an awesome group of panelists and attendees from the Amsterdam coliving scene. Our co-founder Matt Lesniak moderated a panel exploring what the future of shared living is and how coliving operators large and small are incorporating the three core aspects of The Conscious Coliving Manifesto into their developments and operations.
The panelists included Dimphy van Wijk of The Student Hotel, Anneke Timmermans of Greystar, Mischa De Munck of Quarters, Lucas Crobach of Zoku, Ruth van Dijken of Blending Bricks and Tracey Ingram of Frame.
Some of the attendees included coliving companies and organizations like Habit, Coliving NL, Cutwork, The Class of 2020, Pop Up City and even our good friend Ricardo from Oka all the way from Porto Allegre!
The topic of the evening was the future of shared living, especially in regards to how to embed community, sustainability and wellbeing into the evolution of the coliving sector.
Some of the panelists had already been integrating these aspects into their products from the start: for example Zoku‘s concept evolved from a thorough user research process and they are now a B Corp. The Student Hotel also has several social and environmental impact initiatives and have also published impact reports. The Blending Bricks concept is also an intergenerational coliving concept with social impact and environmental sustainability at its core.
We’re excited to see so many coliving operators incorporating these aspects into the heart of their businesses!
Our co-organisers and partners Spatial Experience released a meet up report early this week with further insights and key highlights about the event. We invite you to read more about the event in the download link below. Big thanks to Zoku for hosting us and to all our co-organisers, panelists and attendees!
This article has been coauthored for you by:
Penny is Director of Research & Sustainability at Conscious Coliving. She has an MSc in Social Research Methods, and her PhD explores how shared living may enable lowered environmental impacts. She has consulted on numerous shared living projects, specialising in impact strategy, concept, and community. Penny has presented at conferences including the Co-Liv Summit, the Urban Living Festival, BTR360 and more. She has also authored publications in The Developer, Coliving Insights Magazine, the book Urban Communal Living in Britain, as well as being interviewed by the BBC and the Guardian about shared living.
Matt is responsible for designing community experience and impact strategies and measuring the social value of coliving communities. Matt is also a founding member and current Head of Community of Co-Liv and has worked for The Collective on their Impact Team.
