Hustle Hub: Co-Living as Social Infrastructure

Co-living is usually designed for people who have choices. Young professionals who could rent alone but prefer community. Digital nomads who want flexibility. Hustle Hub: LIVE.WORK.PLAY, a project by Ahmad Wasi, B.M Tahammul Kabir, Rahat, and Rakesh Sharma, designs co-living for people who need it. Migrants, informal workers, and urban poor who need shelter, employment, and community in one place.

Shortlisted in the Hustle Hub '19 competition on uni.xyz, this entry reframes the co-living brief as a social infrastructure problem rather than a lifestyle product. The building does not just house people. It employs them, feeds them, and connects them to the city around them.

The Section: Four Layers of Programme

The section collage shows the building's vertical logic in a single image. At the top, resting spaces: quiet rooms for sleeping and retreat. Below, living spaces: shared kitchens and communal dining. Below that, working areas: workshops, maker spaces, and co-working. At the base, commercial zones: shops, markets, and services that face the street. People gather on curved outdoor paths between the layers.

This four-layer stack is the project's organising principle. Rest at the top (quietest). Commerce at the bottom (most public). Living and working in between. The gradient from private to public runs vertically. Every resident moves through all four layers daily, which means every resident encounters every programme. The building does not allow isolation.

The Atrium: Where Everything Meets

The interior render shows a multi-level atrium with arched openings, hanging swings, shop fronts, and people moving between levels. Programme icons identify living, retail, work, and play zones. The atmosphere is busy, colourful, and deliberately dense. This is not a quiet courtyard. It is a market hall that happens to have housing above it.

The arched openings give the atrium a civic quality. They read as a public building rather than a residential lobby. This is intentional. The project is designed for people who may be new to a city and need the building to function as their first public space: a place to find work, buy food, meet neighbours, and learn how the city works.

LIVE.WORK.PLAY: The Collage

The signature collage shows a crowd of coloured figures gathered in front of the Hustle Hub entrance. Vignette bubbles illustrate the life inside: an artist working in a studio, stacked modular units viewed in section, a co-working space with people at desks, and a communal cafe. The crowd is diverse in age, dress, and activity. The building serves all of them.

The collage style matters. It is not a polished render. It is a populated diagram. The people are the subject, not the architecture. This is the project's values made visible: the building exists for the people in front of it, not for the camera behind it.

The Units: 90 to 240 Square Feet

Six modular dwelling plans show the unit range. The smallest is 90 square feet: a bed, a bathroom, and storage. The largest is 240 square feet: a bed, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a small living area. Every unit has a blue highlight strip at the top (a ventilation or service zone) and a compact layout where nothing is wasted.

These are not luxury co-living pods. They are minimum viable dwellings. The project does not pretend that 90 square feet is generous. It acknowledges that 90 square feet with access to a shared kitchen, a workshop, and a market is more livable than 90 square feet alone. The shared programme compensates for the private compression. The building is honest about this trade-off.

Why This Project Matters

The Hustle Hub competition asked for co-living. Most entries designed for millennials with laptops. This entry designed for migrants with suitcases. The distinction matters because it changes every assumption: the unit sizes are smaller, the shared spaces are more essential, the commercial programme is not a cafe but a livelihood, and the atrium is not a lounge but a public hall.

For anyone studying co-living as social infrastructure rather than lifestyle product, this project demonstrates that the building type has a much wider application than the market currently serves. Co-living is not just for people who want community. It is for people who need it.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designers: Ahmad Wasi, B.M Tahammul Kabir, Rahat, Rakesh Sharma

Enter a Design Competition on uni.xyz

If social housing, co-living for vulnerable populations, or architecture as employment infrastructure is the kind of work you want to pursue, uni.xyz runs competitions year-round that reward proposals with real social ambition.

Project credits: Hustle Hub: LIVE.WORK.PLAY by Ahmad Wasi, B.M Tahammul Kabir, Rahat, Rakesh Sharma. Shortlisted, Hustle Hub '19 (uni.xyz).