Fostering Creativity and Collaboration in Coliving Communities

In the past few years, coliving spaces have emerged as vibrant hubs of creativity and collaboration, where like-minded individuals come together to form a close-knit community. 

To foster creativity and collaboration, the coliving environment offers a range of activities that promote interaction, learning, and the exchange of ideas. From musical jamming sessions to language exchange, cooking/baking together, and engaging movie/book clubs or other hobbies, coliving spaces typically provide residents with diverse opportunities to explore their passions, broaden their horizons, and forge meaningful connections. 

In this article, we will cover some of the most typical creative and collaborative activities in coliving communities and speak about the power of collective creativity and the transformative impact it has on fostering a sense of belonging.

Connecting and Collaborating through Music

Creating music has always been a creative and collaborative activity. Not many people do not enjoy a jamming session, playing an instrument together, singing while others play, or just taking the atmosphere in. 

Having an instrument around in the coliving can be a great conversation starter. It will without a doubt inspire the colivers to try it out, regardless of their experience with the instrument, and will open up conversations. 

Those who know how to play will be happy to show off their skills and those without experience we’ll love to hear them play or even take a lesson or two from them. 

In a group of 8-10 people, there will most likely be someone who has played guitar before, so having a guitar around the coliving space is a great idea to bring the group together. 

In Vivarium, our communal guitar is one of our residents’ favorite additions to the space. At some point, everyone has at least tried playing, and we certainly love to encourage them.

We often gather the colivers and go for jamming sessions in the nearby park. We have a picnic there, play the guitar, sing, and have fun in the shade - it’s one of our residents’ favorite activities and one of those that connects our community the most.

Creativity and Communal effort through Shared Meals and Food Prep

In colivings, cooking together happens very often. In general, coliving spaces encourage group meals and gathering around the table because people tend to connect over food much faster. 

So, because 8-10 people are eating together, to distribute tasks and speed up the process, colivers often cook together or help out each other in the kitchen. When you add food prep to the equation, the whole experience of bonding over food reaches a higher level. 

Preparing food together is an extremely creative and collaborative activity and often a great ice-breaker. Food can inspire many conversations and point out those interesting cultural differences that spark a discussion. 

Whether it’s a pre-elaborated recipe all colivers are working on or a few smaller contributions where everyone prepares something, the collaboration is always there. Most colivings have one main kitchen space with one or two cooking surfaces, so managing to use it between a group of people calls for a lot of patience, collaboration, and communication.

There is also always a lot of learning happening when we cook with others. It might be due to cultural differences, different backgrounds, simply greater experience, or just a skill acquired through our family and tradition. Seeing people cook, bake, or cut simple things the way you never did is always a ground for learning, experimenting, and curiosity. 

In a way, preparing food together is a small group project where everybody focuses for a few hours to achieve the same goal. That is why sitting down after food prep and running together in the kitchen feel so rewarding. It feels like the group accomplished something together. 

Living alone sometimes doesn’t give so many opportunities to see how other people do things or to learn to be patient and share such an essential space with others. Connecting over food prep and then enjoying the food was made together afterward is one of the activities that have the best impact on community-building. That’s why family dinners are such a big thing in colivings.

Language exchange

Colivings are the perfect ground for language exchange because of how international they are. Besides basic language learning, a mixed language environment and quick language exchange can also give an amazing context for conversation starting and can inspire some very fun comparisons or talks about cultural differences. 

Language is a great way to learn about someone’s culture or a country because of how intertwined it is in it. The diverse backgrounds of residents offer a rich tapestry of languages and perspectives, allowing colivers to dive deeper into the intricacies of a language and explore the cultural nuances embedded within it. 

In an international community, colivers will also need to find ways to communicate with each other, so they will play around with words, and jokes, and explore the contexts. There will often be some colivers native speakers of languages from the same language group, who will experiment and try to talk to each other each one in their language to see how much they can understand or what similarities and differences there are. 

So, through language exchange, residents not only gain linguistic proficiency but also gain valuable insights into various traditions, customs, and ways of life from around the world. Although it’s not an organized activity but something that happens daily, language exchange is an immersive, collaborative, and dynamic experience that bridges cultural gaps, promotes understanding, and fosters connections among coliving community members.

Movie/Book clubs

Movie nights are a popular coliving activity, but when colivings want to make it more collaborative and purposeful, a movie club can be an amazing twist to it. 

For a movie club, the group can pick a certain theme or a movie every week or so, and follow it with a discussion afterward. The group can set some questions before the movie starts and give their answers after watching.

Another way is to write down their current opinions on a certain topic or have a brief discussion about it followed by another discussion after the movie to see if the opinions changed or if there is something new you added to your understanding of the topic. 

Documentaries are the best for this activity but it can work on any movie that has a deeper meaning or learning behind it. Movie clubs can be organized by topics/themes as well. For example, the group decides to watch classics every week and discuss what they liked and what they didn’t, the history behind making the movie, etc. 

The same concept can work with books. In connection to language learning, if all colivers are learning a language (for example English), reading in it will in addition to the book club also be a great way to learn vocabulary, understanding, and grammar.

Other Creative Activities

Lastly, most coliving spaces have some special activities that make them different from other spaces. Activities like these are spontaneously born or inspired by a few colivers, the host, or the offering in the city or town where the coliving is. 

In Vivarium, for example, we have something we call a Photography expedition. For this activity, we split into teams and go on an expedition to discover the city through the lens. We typically set a particular topic like What Valencia means for you? and take photos that answer this question. 

After the expedition, each team presents their photos and we open a conversation about different perspectives on the topic. 

We found this activity to be fun, educational, creative, and collaborative. The members of the teams always have to work together to find common views, so there is a lot of discussion and different perspectives happening even before the presentation. It’s also a great way to explore the city and connect with it in a special way, as well as take photos as memories to remember the experience in the city through the eyes of the coliving and community. 

For us, this works perfectly but different spaces can have all sorts of different creative outlets. Some will encourage painting together, some collaborative storytelling, others will focus on repair and crafts, and some on gardening. The options are limitless and the best part is that they almost always come to be because of the collaborative spirit in the community in the first place. Two or three people will find an interesting hobby, others will join, and with a bit of time and adjustments, it can easily become everyone’s favorite activity.

So, whether residents are strumming a guitar, preparing a feast, engaging in linguistic exchanges, or embarking on photography expeditions, creative and collaborative coliving activities not only enrich their individual experiences but also play a big role in contributing to the vibrant tapestry of the coliving community as a whole.