6 months into 2020, already?? (WTF!) Hopefully we won’t spend another 3 months in lockdown, but it’s really hard to know. The first half of the year has been really full of ups and downs … and now with another incident of the US police murder of George Floyd to top it all off, the evidence of our disconnected world couldn’t be more clear. But we believe that Covid-19 has also been a moment to reconnect with ourselves and others (albeit however easy or difficult it sometimes is) and the need for community is even stronger.
Fortunately for us, we have been nourished by a lot of strong communities lately and we wanted to share those experiences with all of you in the blog post. This piece doesn’t really have any agenda, more of an intention to share with our community what we’ve been up to the last few months and how we’re moving forward!
Before we get into it, here you have our latest article on coliving desing & architecture in the times of Covid-19. We really hope it is useful for you in these challenging global times!. And to support you in your community management & development, make sure to check out The Community Facilitation Handbook.
To start, we have been a part of one very special community that is close to our hearts: I’m grateful to be involved with the Conscious Coliving team and for the support we’ve received (and given) from one another over the last few months. Our weekly check-ins (where we spend at least half an hour sharing our ‘internal temperatures and weather’), CoCo Boogies (our celebratory dances) and hard work has played a big part in all of us remaining connected to one another (currently we’re spread out in the U.K., France and Costa Rica) and feeling fulfilled in our client work and business development. It’s really a special team and I couldn’t be prouder of us at the moment!
Working hard or hardly working???
Secondly, we have been crankin’ on client work since the beginning of the year, with coliving communities in the U.K. and in India. We’ve been supporting SNRG create a cohousing/coliving hybrid shared living model that embeds clean energy, shared mobility and state-of-the-art construction technologies (i.e. cross laminated timber) into the design and experience of their communities. It’s been awesome working with them and we really align with their vision of shared living!
We have also been working with XUSA, a socially-minded housing developer based in Scotland that is working on a build to sell / build to rent affordable communal living model. Another great project with strong values and alignment and a strong project team (including Avison Young, Tinto, Aurora Planning and LivShare). Finally, we helped develop the concept and spatial design for a coliving hotel in Chennai, India, with hotel operator Hablis. This was a really fun project to work on and we had the chance to do so with our good friend Gui Perdrix of Art of Coliving (watch the Art of Co space btw!).
Finally, we wouldn’t really be here if it wasn’t for the wider coliving community. I have been humbled by the common unity (wink wink) I have seen within the sector, especially during the Co-Liv Virtual Meetups. These meetups have been held by Co-Liv’s rockstar Global Ambassadors and have hosted impressive speakers and panelists from around the world of coliving. You can find some of the meetup recaps here and we will also be collating a lot of these insights into the next Coliving Insights edition. Penny Clark, our Head of Sustainability and Research was even recently on the panel of the Portugal Virtual Meetup!
As part of the founding team of Co-Liv (when it was Pure House Lab) and currently Head of Community there, I am super proud of where it has come and all the momentum behind the Co-Liv and wider coliving communities. The sentiment within this community is that coliving and shared living is definitely here to stay and that Covid-19 has been an opportunity to reprioritise and realign with the core of coliving is: community, wellbeing and sustainability and connection to self, others and nature.
Our coliving community wouldn’t be anything without our awesome partners either! We’ve got some kick ass technology partners including Salto KS, Whoomies, Yorlet, Kndrd, Kin and The Housemonk and love working with coliving and community building experts such as Cutwork, Coliving Insights, Spatial Experience, Coliving Hub, PURE, Coliving.com and Art/Earth/Tech. We’ve built out this ecosystem of partners and subconsultants to help provide our clients and the wider coliving sector with the support they need to support the evolution of coliving sector and of more conscious coliving projects around the world!
Moving forward, we are positive about the state of the coliving sector and of our growth as industry thought leaders and coliving consultants. We aim to continue to provide as much value and content to the sector and our clients as possible to help create a culture of authentic connection in coliving communities and our own personal communities. We aim to remain an ethical business with strong values and to build out the processes needed to support this at scale. We aim to continue building strong relationships amongst our team and with our partners and the wider coliving community. As impact-driven and social value minded coliving consultants, we aim to make coliving thrive. As human beings and friends, we just aim to keep our heads on our shoulders, mindfully support one another and our families and accept nonjudgmentally the ups and downs of life in order to create kick ass conscious coliving communities around the world!
Peace and love,
Matt
This article has been authored for you by:
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.
