FROM HILLSIDE ECO-COMMUNITIES TO URBAN CO-LIVING SPACES, IN THE WAKE OF THE PANDEMIC A DESIRE FOR INCREASED CONNECTION IS FUELLING NEW WAYS OF LIVING
I’M SITTING AROUND A LARGE OAK TABLE in the communal kitchen/living room of Mason & Fifth, a new co-living community in Bermondsey, London. It’s huge, and artfully decorated with stacked prints and coffee table books. Plush sofas in neutral colours create intimate corners within the super-size space. In the kitchen area, I’m joined by seven residents. A private chef brings out bowls of blackened aubergine and hummus, while Fran, a thirtysomething astrologer and resident, reads another tenant’s palm.
I’m desperately trying to work out the dynamic. Everyone seems closer than neighbours – but they’re not quite friends.
They live together in this beautiful converted factory, but they’re not really housemates: each person has their own private studio as well as access to the communal areas. Welcome to co-living, billed as an instant community and an end to the anonymity of urban life.
‘I’ve always lived in communal settings,’ says Emily Morrison, a 24-year-old actor who just moved to London, and into Mason & Fifth, from LA. ‘I’m from Australia – my family all lived on the same street. I went to boarding school and lived [on campus] at university, so I wanted to replicate that feeling.’
After dinner, I head upstairs to the studio I’ll be calling home for the next 24 hours. The design is slick and sustainable – the kitchen counter is made from marble offcuts and the floor from upcycled bamboo. The ensuite bathroom comes with Mason & Fifth-branded toiletries. I appreciate the small touches – a scented candle here, a hanging plant there – but, reader, it is tiny. The bed, despite being ludicrously comfortable, is essentially in the kitchen. And it’s £2,300 a month (the average rent for the borough is £1,850).
Although I finish my stay scoffing at the price per square metre, there’s clearly an appetite for the model. In April, Mason & Fifth will open a second property, intended for shorter stays, in Primrose Hill, and bougie co-living is flourishing across the capital. The Collective, which opened in 2019, is a 705-room development in Canary Wharf offering members an onsite gym and a cinema. It seems the latest luxury in housing isn’t space or parquet flooring: it’s community.
The boom in communal living isn’t just happening across the luxury market. Cohabitation – a concept that involves sharing living spaces with others – has been on the rise across the UK, with the highest growth rate across all living sectors. Fuelled by the UK’s increasing population and lack of affordable-housing options, the number of new co-living developments has more than doubled since the pandemic. While Mason &
