First year Interiors students are investigating new typologies within architecture and were afforded the opportunity to visit the Old Oak Collective, a large co-living space.
Date: 2 May 2018
First year Interiors Students were led on a guided tour of the innovative, managed co-living space Old Oak, last week.
The tour, which was led by the Old Oak Collective's in-house interior design team, Zoe Laing and Courtney Robertson, provided a great opportunity for the students to develop an understanding of the different aspects, such as interior design and architecture, of this new approach to living and working.
Co-living spaces often arise as a response to the lack of affordable homes and the demand for mid-term accommodation in global cities. Self-managed co-living solutions have a long history that range from the kommunalka shared apartments introduced in the soviet union to hippy communes in the US. Managed co-living solutions are a more recent phenomenon, which has seen increasing numbers in large cities around the world since the early 2010s.
Spaces such as Old Oak rely on a top-down approach to many important aspects of the space, such as the interior design. By organising in this way they avoid some of the traditional problems that arise from shared space living and capitalise on the positive socialising aspects.
Tutors: Harriet McKay, Gabriele Oropallo, Suzanne Smeeth-Poaros
