What is ‘faux-living’ you might ask?
From the French word ‘faux’, meaning ‘fake’, ‘forged’ ‘false’ or ‘artificial’, it is a play on words to describe the unfortunately all too common ‘coliving washing’ that we have identified over the years. This ‘coliving washing’ refers to any residential living project that dubs itself coliving without offering many of the essential elements of the coliving offer, specifically convenience, community, sustainability and wellbeing.
Therefore ‘faux-living' (pronounced 'fo-living') can be defined as the following:
A form of residential living that is branded and marketed using the
term coliving but lacks important aspects of the coliving offer.
For a better understanding of what IS coliving and what 'faux-living' is not, you can also refer to some of the resources, initiatives and discussions below:
What is shared living? by Co-Liv
Coliving Resources by Co-Liv
What is coliving? A universal definition by Art of Co
What is coliving? by Conscious Coliving
A recent LinkedIn debate started by Daniel Beck about what is not coliving and a similar conversation here.
The upcoming Art of Coliving book by Gui Perdrix
These are only some of the resources that can help you understand how to define coliving and the standards the industry is developing to define how coliving communities are designed, developed and facilitated.
We understand that the term coliving is hard to define and the industry still does not have an agreed upon definition or list of standards for this ever-evolving product. Therefore labelling spaces as ‘faux-living’ versus ‘coliving’ may sound a bit arrogant or even naive. We do believe, however, that we are equipped with enough resources and insights within the coliving industry to make this statement and dub the term ‘faux-living’.
Our aim is to support coliving professionals to create thriving and authentic coliving communities, and not bash any 'faux-living' projects.
Should you spot any ‘faux-living’ projects and wish to point them out, please feel free to do so privately here.
We’d love to reach out, support them on their way to developing flourishing coliving projects and invite them into our ever growing coliving ecosystem.
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