Co-living works! Workhome Project longlisted for 2022 Davidson Prize

Contemporary co-living, often involving intentional communities inhabiting purpose-built developments, benefits few while requiring considerable financial/emotional/time investment. Our vision is that the city itself is the locus for *co-living for all*, achieved by infusing existing cities, neighbourhoods and buildings with co-living principles. Rather than reinvent people’s homes, we propose new infrastructure that encourages sharing - the core co-living principle. Embedded in post-Covid disused shops/offices, distinct in each 15-minute-neighbourhood, this operates at different levels of mutual trust and reciprocal activity, starting with sharing a-cup-of-tea-and-a-biscuit and building up to sharing washing- or sewing-machines, childcare etc.

the emptier, the fuller
like shared stomachs.
what already is
needs being done.

Addressing the pressing contemporary issues of loneliness and worklessness, for young, old and single-parents alike, visible physical infrastructure is proposed in disused buildings close to people’s homes, open to everyone, that provides for activities that can’t happen in the home - especially when small, overcrowded, inflexible or poorly-designed. For dirty, noisy work like making and mending. For collective (free) childcare that allows single parents to work. For safe and sociable spaces for grandmas and grandpas to gather.

quietless reserve
in dark deep space
already in the buildings of
many
visible
life

By providing infrastructure that caters for work, children, young adults and older citizens, Co-Living Works! sets off a new age of inclusive urban co-living, celebrating the diversity and cultural richness of our cities by bringing together people who would not normally meet.

a dip in the brick
where use
pools
like heat

TEAM MEMBERS:

Frances Holliss, Maria-Magdalena Atanasova, Howard Davis, Steve Fowler, Cany Ash, Jeremy Porteus, Tomi Akinyemi, Julie Oti, Richard Brown, Joseph Kohlmaier