London’s Palm House offers a new model of coliving

25.7.2025
Matěj Beránek, Hawkins\Brown

London is one of the European leaders in the development of coliving. However, while the majority of coliving projects have been created by adapting older buildings or by modifying building plans during their preparation, The Palm House is the first ever London development designed specifically for the needs of coliving with all its specifics.

In London’s Harrow, in the north-west of the metropolis, we find a building that catches the eye at first sight – an eight-storey building designed by London studio HawkinsBrownwhich is owned by its employees, is clad in coursed brick with distinctive facades and a number of striking architectural features. What makes The Palm House unique, however, is its purpose. That’s because it was built in 2022 as London’s first new building dedicated to coliving, and it was designed from the outset of the project. Until now, coliving projects have mainly been created by redeveloping existing buildings or by changing the function of upcoming projects during their design process as a result of a reassessment of the investor’s investment plan.

The first and largest

A specific feature of coling projects is that once they are completed, they are run by a specific operator who provides all maintenance, and most importantly service to the residents, which rotate through the project quite quickly. The Palm House was built by the developer Halcyon Development Partners and its operator is an English company Folk running a total of three coliving venues in London. The Palm House, however, is the largest and most modern of them all.

The project offers a total of 222 private studios with kitchenettes, storage spaces and private bathrooms. The main focus of coliving is generally on shared spaces and amenities that support community life and social interaction between residents. A publicly accessible café and fitness centre are located on the ground floor, integrating the building firmly into the urban fabric and supporting local daily life.

Residents can use a wide range of common areas within the building, including a co-working space, multifunctional hall, screening room, library and shared kitchens and dining rooms, which are located on the upper floors and directly connected to the roof terraces. These open terraces – one on the roof and the other on the fifth floor – provide residents with a quality outdoor environment for relaxation and smaller social events, while adding a generosity to the project that is typical of contemporary quality coliving architecture.

The architectural design of the building emphasizes the urban character of the building: the distinctive mass is visually lightened by the so-called skybridge, a mass that connects two parts of the building while letting light into its surroundings. It houses a library and a reading room overlooking the city. The building’s expression is enriched by subtle references to 20th-century avant-garde architecture – specifically, circular windows evoking Grigory Barkhin’s Moscow printing press Izvestia. The visual concrete of the interiors is graphically treated with graffiti reinforcing the communal dimension of coliving.

An important question regarding coliving projects is of course the prices at which the apartments are rented. The Palm House offers a standard fully furnished unit for £1,500 per month (approximately 42,000 CZK) with a 3-12 month lease. The rent includes all fees such as council tax, utilities, coworking and fitness memberships. Overall, this is slightly above average market rent.

From research to policy

For The Palm House, HawkinsBrown architects undertook detailed research into coliving, a relatively young housing typology. They analysed the operational, spatial and social aspects of coliving projects, enabling them to formulate recommendations that subsequently went into the preparation of London’s first official methodology for large coliving projects. This document – London Plan Guidance for Large-Scale Purpose-Built Shared Living – was published by the Greater London Authority last year. Among other things, the methodology introduces specific quantitative standards, such as a minimum indoor shared space of 4 m² per resident (for the first 100 residents) and a minimum outdoor shared space of 1 m² per resident (up to 400 residents).

The Palm House shows how architecture and research can together define a new, ever-expanding housing typology that resonates across global metropolises today. London, through this project and the subsequent collaboration between architects and the city, is becoming a model and inspiration for other cities seeking answers to the questions of how to combine high density, shared infrastructure and community living.