I was very interested to read about a number of good sized co-living developments being planned for Dublin and, particularly interstingly, Dun Laoghaire.
The company involved, Bartra, quote a clear definition of their young, target customer. From a business point of view that seems very smart, and probably works best for these larger developments. Personally, I believe co-living has many markets, and a lot to offer many different types of people. It may even be that coliving is at it’s best when embracing diversity within shared environments.
In a potentially landmark decision, the Stirling Prize for the UK’s best new building was awarded to the Goldsmith Street social housing development in Norwich.
Not only is it the first time the award has been given to social housing, it marks a significant change in focus for the jury. Last year’s award went to the £1.3bn Bloomberg headquarters for being the most sustainable office building ever conceived – despite importing 600 tonnes of Bronze from Japan and granite from India.
Wonders never cease. The Royal Institute of British Architects has just given a prize to a street. Not to a vainglorious skyscraper, or an “iconic” bunker museum or a luxury pad in a field, but a living, breathing street. This street is not just a street but a “council street”.
The hope has to be that this award will help shape the direction of housing provision to come. The design is led strongly by social efficacy as well as environmental efficiency. Houses have doorways facing each other, encouraging social interaction, there are communal as well as private play areas and social spaces, and at the front, the design of the street has cars very much secondary to prioritising the movement and interaction of people.
When I’ve seen the new residents interviewed on the news, the response has been overwhelmingly very positive – many people just couldn’t see themselves ever moving out. Now that is an enviable level of satisfaction. Let’s have lots more.
Now – in a personal postscript to this – I have long been espousing the value of great social design in co-living spaces but actually, we have a potential project which we’re looking to bring to fruition next year, in which we had already identified the great value in creating a ‘street’ feeling for a group of holiday cottages and serviced accommodation apartments. Although the ‘street’ will always remain a right of way, the majority of the time vehicles will not be allowed anywhere. We want to encourage the feeling of ‘ownership’ of that area, by the people who are staying there, enabling parents to comfortably allow their children to play with each other outside.
This project is incredibly ambitious and we hope to be able to let you begin to see into it very soon. Fingers crossed!
During our journey through life we experience many boxes; the box we live in, the box we learn in, the box we travel in. And then there’s the box we think in.
Society generally dictates we accept the way things are – it has always been that way, therefore it willalways be that way. But inside, we know in our gut, there is a better way.
A school being planned in Leeds will be among the first to be designed as car-free. It will form part of a multi-generational building that includes a care home for older people. The developers hope many children will walk to the 420-place primary school, which will have no parking spaces for staff or visitors and will discourage drop-offs.
This article is extraordinary. It brings together so many aspects of what I believe about Property and the way we use it as different societies. It must be true that there is no set way for everyone to live but there are many different ways.
The trick for an investor in property is to spot the opportunities from lifestyle changes. The closer you watch society, watch the changing, developing needs and developing importance of those needs, then there is your developing niche.
And niche can often become mainstream. That is the goal. Make the product so goodfor society, so apt to the times it becomes so desirable that everyone in your target market aspires to it. Then expand the options to expand the market reach.
Except for it getting me thinking, none of the above says anything much about the article to which I linked! I suppose is right and proper … I’ll just let the professional journalist express some of my shared vision for the co-living environments of the near future.
An all-party parliamentary group on housing and care for older people has released a report warning of an impending crisis in renting for older generations.
According to chair, Richard Best, “The number of households headed by someone over 64 will treble over the next 25-30 years … unless at least 21,000 suitable homes are built a year there will be nowhere affordable for them to live.”
More than 600,000 members of so-called ‘Generation Rent’ are facing an “inevitable catastrophe” of homelessness when they retire, according to the first government inquiry into what will happen to millennials in the UK who have been unable to get on the housing ladder as they age. People’s incomes typically halve after retirement.
Since we all know that the general population is living longer it seems obvious that specific strategies need to be enacted to deal with the changing demographic. Whether this is led by Government intervention, or is simply entrusted to the Private Rented Sector is the current question at hand.
At SLK we are acutely aware of the changing needs and have been looking at opportunities within rental housing for the older demographic. In this sector, as big fans of co-living, there appears to be an increasingly viable (and valuable) niche opportunity in creating high quality ‘shared housing’ products aimed specifically at older rather than younger generations.
There are so many benefits to co-living it feels like a ‘no-brainer’ to formulate rental products for that ‘post family home’ age, which deliver comfortable, sociable, caring living environments. It is an area we are passionate to explore with like minded partners.
