The Guardian: "Tiny and £1,100 a month: corporate answer to flatsharing in London"

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"The rooms are tiny, the rent is about £1,100 a month, tenants have to share kitchens – and the view is over one of London's bleakest skylines. But the creators of what they claim is the world's largest 'co-living' scheme, opening next week, believe it is the 21st-century alternative to that traditional rite of passage for twenty-somethings arriving in the capital – flatting.

"The Collective, a new 550-bed tower in Old Oak billed as 'a new way to live in London', is the corporate answer to the dilemma facing new workers in the capital hunting for a flat and someone to share the costs. It claims to give tenants – the first move in on Monday – a hassle-free, collective life similar to a student hall of residence, but for people starting out on their career.

"Its sleek modernity is a far cry from the Young Ones, but it's also a long way from the New York shared living of Friends. The majority of rooms are just 10 sq metres and relatively expensive compared to the traditional flatshare in London’s inner suburbs."

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"Collective living's fine for students but for everybody else it stinks"

"The government may have shown no interest in improving the lot of renters, but luckily for them, the private sector has. The Collective promises to be a 'new kind of property company', and its website pitches it as a cross between a Silicon Valley startup, a worker’s soviet and the Polyphonic Spree. 'As the UK's first and the world's largest co-living provider,' it tells us, eyes fixed on the horizon of a bright new dawn, 'we create innovative living and working spaces for the creative and ambitious.' What this means in practice is that you get a room in a student hall of residence for grownups overlooking Willesden Junction freight yard.

"There are many things about all this that are anger-making, but the first that leaps out at you is the price. The rooms are going for the low, low price of £1,083 a month, or almost exactly half of the average Londoner’s take-home pay. And for that, remember, you don’t get a house or even a flat. You get a room that’s about three metres square, which is fine if you’re a sulky teenager but not great if you're 30; as well as a bathroom, and a two-ring kitchen hob you share with a neighbour."