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CO-LIVING - The new cosmopolitan lifestyle
- Rohini Gomez Braganza
- July 23, 2020
- 5:28 am
ARTICLE CONTENTS
THE COMPANY
Company Name: Cove
Website: www.cove.sg
Sector: Property Management
Founders: Sophie, Luca & Guillaume
Trend: Flat share, Co-living
Location: Singapore
Incubated by: Antler
INTRODUCTION
A multitude of today’s working professionals travel the globe frequently on assignments or for entrepreneurial ventures. Crossing the high seas to foreign unfamiliar metropolises for work, is infact familiar ground for many of the millennial demographic. A generation that is bred on the fast lane of ever evolving technologies and familiar surroundings. However, on setting foot on alien turf, the millennial is suddenly approached by a lot of the “unfamiliar”. The “unfamiliar” may be, new office environments, or new colleagues, the search for satisfactory accommodation, climatic differences, language barriers etc. To encounter a concurrence of all these elements can make the experience quite overwhelming and daunting.
Besides having to deal with a colossal amount of unfamiliarity, the ever haunting ‘time crunch’ comes creeping into the picture. For millennial competitors who constantly have time constraints, figuring the ropes of a city quickly is paramount, to become ace performers on the workfront. Hitting the ground running in a metropolis is indeed everything, to survive!
Thankfully contemporary forward thinkers converge, to ideate, improvise and problem solve, with the purpose of creating fruitful solutions. Solutions that especially enhance our holistic lifestyle in the positive direction.
Let us delve into a lifestyle model created especially for the young workforce of today. A design that accelerates their pace of adapting and keeps them at par with the new Metropolis itself.
Three budding professionals, Sophie, Luca and Guillaume, gave up their regular nine to five jobs, and came together to bring their problem solving ideas to an entrepreneurial fruition. Their partnership in Singapore enabled them to create a contemporary solution for an age-old problem faced by working professionals and entrepreneurs world-wide. Accomodation!
Each country has a differential set of property leasing policies and terms. Comprehending a country’s legal framework in the midst of finding a property to lease and setting it up to a liveable standard, can take a very long time and one might even find themselves bound to inflexible and restrictive leaseholds. If that is not enough to deal with, one also gets approached with cultural and language barriers, causing them to make more uninformed choices, like living out of convenient hotel accommodations. But living out of suitcases from a hotel room for a long period, becomes an uneconomical and exorbitant affair. To solve this very issue, ‘Cove‘ was born.
The property managing company Cove, brought together the best aspects of conventional property leasing and serviced apartments into one simple concept, Co-living. This revolutionary concept won them the interest from internationally renowned startup generator, venture capitalist (vc), Antler.
What is co-living?
Co-living is simply a new way to describe flat-sharing or renting a room versus renting an entire property. The design of the accommodation is deconstructed in a way, that each member gets to experience an enriching balance of communal and private living.
Cove PROPERTIES
The company owns multiple properties islandwide that follows the Co-living model, providing better value with affordable rental packages . They may be set in Condominiums or landed properties of the most picturesque neighbourhoods in Singapore. They are well connected to public transport and essential amenities.
1. Co-living in a Condominium Property
2. Co-living in a Landed Property
Designing the millennial lifestyle
The Cove property layout divides itself into communal and private spaces. The communal spaces comprise the living area, kitchen, laundry, storage and spill out spaces like balconies, terraces. The private space includes the bedroom and an ensuite or shared bathroom. The company follows a contemporary and stylish design scheme mongst all of its properties, to appeal to their millennial professional demographic. The walls are adorned with nature theme photography or graphic artwork to instil a serene and calming environment. Whilst all property kitchens showcase two local posters to add a bit of the local flavor into the picture.
Facilities
- Cove provides optional (paid) welcome services to their clients like prepaid Sim cards and Airport pickups.
- All properties are installed with superspeed mesh WiFi, essential electronic appliances such as TV and microwave oven, kitchenware, etc, making them fully functional and ready for immediate check-in.
- With a state of the art living space in place, the company throws in a hint of hotel living into the equation. Their clients have the option to avail (or not) of paid room services for example housekeeping, ironing, additional bed linens, towels or hangers etc that do not come with a hefty price tag. This concept of synergising affordable room services makes it perfectly apt for professionals with work intense lifestyles.
- The leasehold enables clients to avail of condominium facilities like, gymnasiums, pool, BBQ pits etc.
- Tenants get to avail of partner offers from several brands and local businesses that provide perks like promotions and discounts. For example F&B, lifestyle brands, travel experiences, grocery offers etc.
The Coveys Community Club
If all the above mentioned facilities aren’t enough, Cove even goes the extra mile to organise community activity and social networking events that helps their clients develop meaningful and lasting connections with other Coveys. Some of the community events include Christmas parties, BBQ get-togethers etc. More lifestyle/interest oriented events range from yoga classes, HIIT classes to DIY workshops and the likes.
Flexible Leaseholds
Things get better and we haven’t even touched upon the best aspects of Cove’s policies as yet. The company gives the flexibility of complimentary property viewing to have your choice of property. Since a client will be sharing the nest with complete strangers, Cove takes the trouble to match you with like-minded flatmates, after having a full understanding of your background. The check-in date is immediate! If the client faces a change of job or job location, they have the flexibility to switch between any of Cove’s island wide properties with a short notice period. In the event a client wants to check-out completely from the Cove fraternity, a minimum prior checkout notice of 30 days can be given to the company to terminate the agreement. These policies are indeed flexible and perfectly designed to cater to the millennial demographic.
TAILORED TO FIT
The co-living model by Cove is indeed “tailored to fit” the lifestyle of the millennial expat workforce. Their idea sets the stage for a futuristic cosmopolitan lifestyle, which not only discards solitary living completely, but is greatly eco-responsible as well. Gone are the days of singular inflexible leaseholds and redundant utilisation of space and natural resources. This methodology substantially reduces our carbon footprint for the better of our environment.
From the individual experiences of Cove’s founders Sophie, Luca and Guillaume, their expertise and partnership has paved an idyllic pathway for adventurous and stress-free rental experiences for anyone and everyone.
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Project drawings & Photography provided by the company, Cove.
Article written by Architect Rohini Gomez Braganza