Intergenerational coliving
In our current climate, coliving has never been more of a hot topic. With isolation and loneliness already being its own kind of epidemic pre-COVID, it has understandably skyrocketed around the world this year due to social distancing and national lockdown measures.
In Coliving Insights Edition No2, which looks at the state and health of the coliving industry during the COVID-19 pandemic with contributions from experts world over, one particular article by Jorge Fonseca, founder and President of BF Group, focuses on intergenerational coliving and the positive effects he has seen on this type of coliving setup, specifically brought about by the pandemic.
During Portugal’s national lockdown, Fonseca’s senior coliving residence in Lisbon was unexpectedly turned into an intergenerational coliving community, with 35 members of staff joining the senior residents for 64 days in total confinement in Alvalade.
And the result? They all loved it.
As Fonseca points out, since the beginning of human evolution, people have colived. It is only in the last 100 years or so that the idea of the ‘nuclear’ family and individualism has come into play, allowing many people to inadvertently grow up without a community or sense of purpose and belonging. With quarantine and lockdowns highlighting the loneliness epidemic, it has forced us to confront the emptiness in our lives and the ways in which we both understand, and try, to get our emotional and physical needs met.
In most senior residences, particularly Alvalade, the residents experience a form of community-based on communal living. There are different people coming and going to help assist them, scheduled activities and games with the other residents, medical support, a gym, beauty services, music concerts, and religious services, to name a few. Already, they have an abundance of different people coming and going, rather than living by themselves in their own property.
Add 35 new people of a different generation to the mix, and it only increases cognitive stimulation, company, and new shared experiences.
With this impromptu intergenerational coliving setup, Fonseca and his team have already noted what changes need to be made in order to allow this space to flourish even more in the future. New projects will have more space in the corridors, more individual rooms rather than double, larger private rooms, more common areas, and a greater number of exterior areas for people to have the ability to garden, do yoga, or other outdoor activities. They will also have studios/apartments dedicated to the staff, in order to give them a place to live.
As Fonseca notes, people can save money living like this. They don’t have to spend money on daily and monthly costs such as utilities and maintenance fees (as they would have if they lived by themselves), and if they already own a home, they could rent it out, covering the cost of their coliving residence. A win-win situation, for all involved!
In our current climate, Fonseca asks a number of interesting and valid questions, such as:
Is society walking in a different direction to the one we have been? Has the pandemic changed the way that we have been living, working, and playing for decades? Will we in the near future live in a very different way and return to communal living?
His answer? 100% yes - and I couldn’t agree more.
As his own impromptu intergenerational coliving setup has shown, people need communities. With 2020 being a year where our sudden lack of social interaction and individualistic lifestyles has been thrown into disarray, now more than ever, people are starting to realise the importance of people, and community.
It’s time to return to our roots, and remember that we always were, and are, pack animals.
What do you think of intergenerational coliving? Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below.