Is it a dorm? Kollegium? Commune? Whatever you call it, coliving is an affordable living option and an emerging urban residential type. Cohabs, a Brussels-based start-up is at the forefront of the typology, which is popping up in city centers across the globe. One of the newest Cohabs residences just touched down in Greenpoint, Brooklyn: McCarren 141, a design collaboration between start-up founders Malik and Youri Dauber and their friend François Samyn and interior designer Lionel Jadot.
When approaching the corner lot, the exterior is unassuming. A work of adaptive reuse, it blends with the surrounding residential brick buildings. AN toured McCarren 141 shortly after the Summer 2024 Olympics and one of the residents drew Brazil’s flag with chalk on the sidewalk by the front door, clearly showing who they were rooting for. When entering the residence, a wall of wooden cubbies hangs in front of a chalkboard. Here, residents receive their mail—their names are handwritten on the chalkboard, adding a personal touch. In this lobby the ceiling is capped with exposed bulb fixtures that pierce through actual checker and backgammon boards—hinting at the design theme for McCarren 141.
The board game theme was cleverly weaved throughout the residence. Bold colors and second-hand furniture were deployed among original elements of the reused structure. Jadot’s design feels clunky: all the necessary items are there, but it’s intentionally chaotic. It is evident the organized minimalism was not at the forefront of the interior design intent, but rather the space can be described as “casual” and “sociable.” After all, U.S. managing director Dan Clark and soon-to-be operations manager in Washington, D.C. Lucy d’Alençon, liken the Cohabs experience to “living with 15 friends.”
What Is Cohabs?
McCarren 141 is one 13 Brooklyn sites Cohabs operates. The start-up’s vision currently spans 11 cities and a total of 125 buildings with many more in the pipeline. The founders set an ambitious goal to land in 12 cities with 5,000 rooms by its ten-year anniversary in 2026. Clearly, they’re well on their way.
So, why Greenpoint? Cohabs subscribed to the “15-minute city” mantra but extends it slightly in the New York context to a more realistic 30 minutes. This is achieved by acquiring sites close to public transportation, grocery stores, and restaurants, in addition to a set commute timeline to central Manhattan.
Every Cohabs building has an average of 20 to 25 rooms subdivided into what are called “units.” Each unit shares resources like bathrooms and kitchenettes, but beyond the necessities, amenities from on-site laundry, a gym, rooftop terraces, and gardens are included in the rent. This is the more radical heart of coliving. Not only are shared amenities a more sustainable model for living and building, they have also been shown to increase sociability in urban residences and push back against a crisis of loneliness.
Furnishing Community
Community is a key tenet of the Cohabs philosophy, so the first floor is typically communal. A fully stocked kitchen is equipped with cooking appliances and utensils. It is accompanied by a grand dining table and small seating area. The bold color scheme comes through here with the ceiling and stove vents completely doused in a burnt red-orange color, contrasting the green-stained wooden cabinetry. The basement has been converted into a large living room with sunken sofas and quirky side chairs where people can socialize. Despite being a basement with pockets of exposed stone walls, it’s easy to forget there aren’t any windows. Instead, a wide array of textures and patterns clash together. From purposefully mismatched furniture to more board game paraphernalia, this space continues the casual vibe Cohabs has curated.
Behind each Cohabs residence is a design team with a particular vision of home. The chief design officer and partner at Cohabs is interior designer Lionel Jadot. He likes to give a new spin to discarded items and is no stranger to adaptive reuse—the design approach for Cohabs sites. “Jadot likes to keep the old whenever possible and bring in a new, fresh kind of juxtapositions,” said Clark. “He has a wabi-sabi kind of philosophy—a lot of Japanese meets Scandinavian within the design.” At the McCarren residence in particular, Jadot kept as much of the original structure as possible. This includes the original wooden floors, even though it meant patching up the holes with plywood. In this iteration of the building, a wall with tin tilework was intentionally left half-painted. The colors range from dark teal to spots of soft peach, ochre, and a quiet eggshell white. This layered reveal continues upstairs, where the stairwells and hallways showcase the remains of historic wallpapers.
Making a Sustainable Statement
To determine which sustainable methods are best for Cohabs, the team developed “lab houses” where they experiment on the latest green design trends. The first of the guinea-pig structures was the Ma Campagne 232 in Brussels. “These are houses that are more time consuming and a bit more expensive for us to renovate but are where we’re going to explore a lot of new materials and see how they’re going to last,” d’Alençon shared. Lab houses have tested insulation, paint, waterproof stucco, and water restricting shower heads—just to name a few. The next lab house will be in Paris, and there are hopes for a future one in New York City.
Sustainable design also extends from the exterior architecture to interior design. Cohabs is a big believer in reusing furniture whenever possible. Most North American locations use Kaiyo, an online second-hand furniture start-up that allows you to buy and sell used pieces in an app. Jadot also sources furnishings from local antique shops. For the Greenpoint outpost, many side tables and mirrors came from Williamsburg’s Mother of Junk and the communal dining table was a find from Olde Good Things. The only furniture not reused are the custom CNC beds, desks, and wardrobes from Nashville CNC. They were assembled on site like Legos.
It’s obvious the Cohabs team prides itself on making each residence feel like home. Some team members have even found themselves living in Cohabs—and truly relate it as “home.” This is a progressive start-up that hopes to cause a domino effect in both the design and urban field by opening people’s eyes to sustainable and coliving housing initiatives.
