How do you imagine the future of living and working is going to be like? And how the real estate sector is going to react upon it?
“We are seeing a true “co-revolution” when it comes to the future of living, working and learning.
This is a generational lifestyle shift as younger people pursue experiences over more material goods.
This is reflected in the physical living spaces they occupy as places of interaction and community take greater importance. Digitalisation is obviously the catalyst. Technology is transforming historic conceptions of work and the workplace.
The next generation of workers capitalize on their innate connection with new technologies and social media, demanding a more flexible and diverse places to live, work and learn.
Student accommodation has been at the forefront of these trends and proofed itself to be a great opportunity for developers and investors to experiment with these innovations, that now are being translated into co-working & co-living spaces”.
Who's gonna be the "right hand" of real estate players in order to create the perfect working environment?
“The bigger picture that we at The Class 2020 currently observe is that investments in living and working spaces have become operations led. And that is quite a different game for the traditional real estate industry.
Now you need to take care of your customers on an ongoing basis, which allows you to actively manage your returns by improving your product.
But hospitality on the contrary can also be cumbersome and requires good staffing.
So strong operators are key, next to design teams and think tanks that help forecasting trends that can improve the product offering”.
Jorick Beijer, the Director of The Class of 2020
In your opinion, what's the element that nowadays cannot be missed in the workspace, in order to help people and companies to thrive?
“I think we all experienced ourselves, and research now clearly shows, that successful workspaces are not just enormous open floorplan spaces with a slick design.
Great workplaces have a rich variety of working typologies, facilitating group scrums, relaxed conversations and also pure concentration.
Especially the importance of places that allow people to isolate themselves for a couple of hours, has been greatly underestimated in the last years. No person is the same, and we excel in different ways.
Let’s stop making workplaces which pretend that people are generic after all”.
