Everybody loves London. There’s Camden Town and Camden Lock, Finsbury Park, West Court, Picadilly Circus, Abbey Road… London’s charm invites the visitor to seriously consider aiming for more than the occasional rendez-vous and even potentially looking for a more permanent living arrangement in the city. A lot of people, when moving to London -or any new city, for that matter, are also looking for a community, making Colivings one of the most popular residential settings of the moment. To make sure that this sense of community can be experienced comfortably and positively by the residents, there is a set of mindful values that every coliving or residential building should insert into the resident’s day to day. Colivings and residential buildings across Europe have been using Smart Point services for years, so in Today’s blog we want to give you our 5 cents about these values.
1.Comfort, flexibility and ease: the base of every coliving
Life inside the building should be comfortable and also bring some added flexibility into the resident’s life. As our lives are getting increasingly busier and with the growing presence in our day to day, more and more errands and tasks get automated to give us more flexibility and space to enjoy our free time. One way in which buildings can do that is by adding convenience and online shopping services for the user such as smart delivery reception services, gyms and even inside supermarkets.
2. Community living in the building’s shared spaces
The whole point of a coliving is to bring the residents together to build a big family. In other words, to increase the sense of community, hence bring happiness into the residents’ lives. In the most literal sense, this translates into making the communal spaces very appealing and open for everybody in the building to enjoy. These spaces need to be inviting, well illuminated and assorted of services and activities designed to bring people together: bars, restaurants or canteens, rooms with sofas and games, smart services, outdoor areas such as communal vegetable patches, gardens, etc.
3. Wellbeing as the very core of the residential building’s ethos
This is not unique to colivings: wellbeing is key to a happy and healthy life, and we all want our residence to offer us that. Colivings have a great opportunity to take this value to the next level by using the sense of community to organise wellness and mindfulness activities, as well as offering wellbeing related services. There are many ways to do it, such as offering yoga classes, fitness training Sessions, mental health and nutrition related workshops. With the Smart Point, which is a smart locker with a multiservice marketplace, colivings can offer online therapy services, physiotherapy, healthy weekly menus and snack services, and more.
4. Coworking spaces and professional growth services
The idea of colivings is closely linked to coworkings, which are shared working spaces where entrepreneurs and even full companies can work in community and come in contact with other professionals from different sectors. But why not take it to the next level? After all, we are in London, which is one of the biggest business centres in the world! One way to offer professional growth to the residents is by offering business coaching sessions, networking sessions, workshops and more. Because some of these services can be online, one idea can be to use an open source code multiservice port where to add professional growth services of the building manager’s choice.
5. Optimisation, sustainability and innovation values
Not all colivings are Smart Buildings. However, these two types of buildings tend to share some values. For instance, innovation and sustainability, which go hand in hand, since one way to make both the building and the world around it is by using technology. What this means is that the building must function in a way that not only makes life inside of it comfortable and safe, but also protects the planet and its durability, using technology. This includes the building’s systems, as well as its user services. Once again, the Smart Point is a clear example of innovation service which makes the users’ day to day easier, whilst protecting the planet using sustainable measures.
