Coworking and co-living

Libby Sander, a lecturer at Bond Business School, recently wrote a piece in which she explored how coworking spaces have the potential to address larger issues at play in cities of the future. And one of those, she reckons, is the affordability of accommodation for singles, as well as an increasing problem with space due to rapid urbanisation.

Enter the concept of co-living coupled with coworking. “In London, the world’s largest co-living communityopened its doors to 550 residents. While residents have their own units with bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette, the project offers all inclusive rent with access to a restaurant, co-working spaces, wifi, gym, cinema, spa, larger kitchens and dining rooms,” Sander writes.

She reckons that besides convenience and flexibility, “… early indications suggest that co-living residents are attracted to the sense of community. While empirical research on co-living is yet to emerge, 96% of residents of co-housing communities report increased life satisfaction according to research".

Read the full story here.

Women-only cowork spaces

US entrepreneur Felena Hanson is the founder of Hera Hub, a ‘women-centric’ cowork space and business accelerator. She has branches in several cities across the States and is expanding rapidly. Hanson believes "women-owned buisnesses" are the key to the next wave of US prosperity” and that “a strong group of supportive women are vital to creating business success”. 

The mission of the Hera Hub is “To provide entrepreneurial women with a productive, professional work and meeting space, where they can connect with a like-minded community to collaborate and flourish”.

Hanson describes Hera Hub as “the first international female-focused coworking space – a shared, flexible work and meeting space where entrepreneurial women can create and collaborate in a professional, productive, spa-like environment”. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Read more here. 

First cowork space opens in Lagos, Nigeria 

Lagos has its first “timeshare” coworking space in Nigeria. Lagos CoWork was developed by 3Invest, a company founded by Ruth Obih-Obuah, who told the How We Made It In Africa website 3Invest’s strategy was to “increase flexibility, productivity and satisfaction by providing flexible, modern workplace communities across Africa”. She says the coworking revolution is “transforming real estate”. 

But it wasn’t smooth sailing for Obih-Obuah. She started developing the space but decided it wasn’t right, even though it was 50% complete. So she headed off to Harvard Business School to do a course on real estate management. 

“Harvard assured me that coworking and flexible spaces are the future and are fast becoming critical components of wider corporate real estate,” she said. And after taking direction from her professor, came back to Nigeria and dismantled the entire space and rebuilt it, opening in March. 

Obih-Obuah said she was “investing resources in educating organisations on the need to adopt this new generational workplace strategy”.

For the full story, click here.