Meet Hana Ahriz, Co-Liv Ambassador for Germany

How do you currently define yourself, and what drives you?

Throughout my career, I’ve focused on building experiences at Airbnb building communities, at my event agency, building events and programs for employees, and now at SP building spatial experiences. When I see a space - I think about how people are using it, how they will connect, and their overall experiences. 

Space & Pepper is a creative studio on a mission to humanize spaces. We are obsessed to further understand how people live, work, and connect with one another. With this foundation, we build human-centered space concepts, designed around user experiences. From coffee shops, hotels, coliving to workspaces - we want to reshape the physical world around us.

What makes you passionate about coliving, and why are you actively promoting the coliving scene?

I was one of Co-Liv’s first ambassadors, and was active pretty early on in the coliving scene because it is a great symbol and community concept for our world. 

We’re in 2021, people are craving social connection, interaction, belonging, living experiences, traveling, and meeting new people. When it is properly designed and built, Coliving gives all of this.

At Space & Pepper and our lab, Spacelab, we’ve spent the last 4 years fighting for “community-driven” and “human” coliving spaces. Coliving is community driven when it is a sustainable business model designed for clients.

What are your visions and thoughts on the future of coliving for the year to come?

Some coliving developments have been a good reminder that real estate strategy pairs with human-centered design and decisions. 

The only way to find the right target audience for coliving, to thrive as a business, and to scale is to consider user’s needs at the very beginning.

You joined Co-Liv as “Design & community Ambassador and Germany Ambassador” — which opportunities do you want to create for the country you represent, the organization, its members, and the coliving industry?

I have taken on two roles at Co-Liv: Design and Community Ambassador and Germany Ambassador. In Germany, coliving has been very resilient and is here to stay. We want to push the movement here and integrate the spatial experience/human-centered design part that is part of the “coliving experience”. 

In a nutshell, we’re providing great user Experiences in coliving spaces.

How did you get into coliving?

I started my journey in “alternative housing’ when I was working at Airbnb, then I discovered The Hacker house - a large airbnb with coworking spaces. Shortly after, I worked in coworking spaces and discovered the world of “co”, that fit perfectly with my lifestyle. 

Some experiences were truly impactful and reinforced my willingness to push the coliving movement worldwide: 

- I joined the Mangrove community in 2018. 

Mangrove is a community of independent minds who share the same values and gather around retreats. We are a global team made of passionate freelancers and entrepreneurs. Everyday, we learn from each other, build projects together and share unique experiences. Our ecosystem helps us grow as individuals and build a thriving society. You can learn more about our story here! Basically, we were traveling and working in communities in different parts of the world. Building mini coliving in different cities. 

•  I then attended the first Co-Liv Summit 2018 in Paris, when I quickly realized that coliving will rise soon. 

- Soon after, key actors appeared as Ennismore, Selina, or Lyf from Ascott. They were on a mission to “reinvent the hotel experience”. 

The asset classes of long-stay were not only hotels or apart-hotels anymore but a lot of new players as coliving, coworking, digital nomad house, community-driven hotels, pods hotels, micro-housing, retreat house, and more.

Thank you for being part of this movement! How can people reach out, and what can you mostly help them with?

We design coliving spaces with a human-centric approach. If you’re in the conceptual development phase of your coliving roadmap, then reach out to us. We’re also integrating workplace strategy into our offers - if you want to build a coliving space focused on remote work/coworking, we are the go-to person. 

You can reach out to us anytime at hello@spaceandpepper.com

‍

With lots of co-love,

‍

The Co-Liv Team

‍

💙 Donate to our non-profit (we thank you for your support!)

🤝 Discover how to work in partnership with Co-Liv.

📢 Attend our upcoming events and masterminds.

🚀 Follow Co-Liv on LinkedIn or Instagram.

💪 Become a Co-Liv member and join the 10-week Onboarding Program.