At Cloche d’Or, in one of the blocks of the Livingstone 3 building (located at 240, route d’Esch in Luxembourg), Many Many will be opening the Henry’s residence, dedicated to coliving, from January. However, this residence offers more than just rooms and living spaces: it also includes a coworking space, a fitness area, a coffee shop, a shop, a rooftop and a connected laundry.
Coliving is one of the solutions that can help solve housing problems in Luxembourg. This offer of individual housing with shared living spaces fits in well with the lifestyle of people starting their professional lives in Luxembourg. With coliving, these people can find a temporary housing solution (for six months, for example, during a trial period or work placement) with a range of services and a controlled budget since the most important ancillary costs linked to housing (insurance, electricity, internet, etc.) are included in the rent. Tenants have their own private space, with a bedroom and bathroom, but also a shared space (kitchen-living-dining room) where they can meet other people and start a social life in a country they don’t necessarily know.
Unlike the traditional market, this type of offer means that you only have to bring your suitcase, as everything is already furnished and equipped, and the rental offer is more flexible in terms of duration than ordinary leases, which are generally for at least a year. So the target audience is quite young, made up of people who have started to earn a good living but are not yet homeowners. These are the ‘HENRYs’ (High Earners Not Rich Yet), hence the name of the residence, which is also a local nod to the grand duke’s first name.
A tailor-made project
Many Many already has several offers of this type, mainly in Luxembourg City, but also on the border (Arlon in Belgium, Audun-le-Tiche in France). But their latest residence, Henry’s, stands out from the other residences in their portfolio (which now has 400 keys), because it was designed from the outset to meet their specifications, whereas most of their other projects are houses converted into coliving spaces.
For Henry’s, Nicolas Legay and Aurélien Dobbels, the co-founders of Many Many, drew on studies by anthropologist Robin Dunbar and shared housing specialist Charles Durrett. On the basis of their studies, they drew up a set of specifications which, in their words, “provide living spaces that are perfectly adapted to each circle of social intimacy.”
The first circle is that of close friends, with whom we rub shoulders on a daily basis, and which amounts to five people. For example, a flat has a fully equipped kitchen, a dining room, a living room and five bedrooms with their own private bathroom.
Then there’s a second circle of “good friends,” defined as 15 people. This is the number of residents on each floor of the residence.
Then there’s the extended circle, which is 50 people and corresponds to the total number of residents in this project.
Living at home like in a hotel
The Livingstone project was developed by BPI, Immobel and Félix Giorgetti. The architecture of Livingstone 3 was entrusted to Art & Build Architects. The aim was to develop a mixed-use building, one wing of which includes a coliving space (2,639m2) for 49 resident-tenants of Many Many, two commercial units on the ground floor--a coffee shop and a unit currently being marketed--and a coworking space. The other two wings are dedicated to conventional housing.
The accommodation is built to the same standards as a 4-star hotel, with high-quality furnishings throughout, a mastery of space that is optimised for comfort in a small space (the rooms are between 20 and 25m2, and the shared spaces between 50 and 60m2), and ancillary services in addition to the rooms (connected laundry, cleaning of common areas with the option of extending it to private areas, access to the fitness area, easy access to the coworking space, access to the roof terrace). The entire premises are let for a monthly rent of €1,500, plus approximately €300 in utilities. The interior fittings were developed by Icon, an office based in St Petersburg, and Byld, the Inowai spin-off specialising in project management (Many Many is part of the Inowai group).
A coworking space and a fitness room
“In addition to the housing units, we have also developed a coworking space,” explained Legay. “These are plug & play office spaces, with around 300m2 of individual workspaces, but also shared spaces such as meeting rooms, copy corners... These spaces can be rented by companies or by the residents of the coliving space, who may need a hot desk, meeting room or printer, for example.”
Alongside this workspace, there is also a fitness room that is open to coworking users and coliving residents. Thanks to a connected lock system, Many Many can easily adapt access according to demand.
In total, the project represents an investment of around €22m, which was no mean feat during this troubled period for the property market. And while the investor wishes to remain discreet, we do know that it is a private foreign investor in the luxury hotel sector who is diversifying into coliving.
This article was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.