Stories, guides and tips from the HOC community in Antwerp.
Community living in Antwerp starts with an awkward fact: where you sleep decides whom you meet. In a coliving house that means a door on your corridor, a kitchen you share, a neighbour you nod to on the stairs; for a young professional or an expat new to the city, that is the whole network, until something widens it. Coliving events are what widen it.
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For the HOC Living community, coliving in Antwerp is also about getting to know the city one cup at a time. Over the past twenty years, Antwerp has learned to drink coffee with more attention. What started with one distinctive coffee bar on Hopland grew into a city of roasters, baristas and places where an espresso, filter coffee or cortado is discussed as naturally as a good glass of wine. For expats and curious locals alike, that is wonderful news: today, Antwerp can also be discovered one cup at a time.
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Anyone who experiences coliving with HOC Living soon discovers that Antwerp is much more than handsome façades and convenient cycling routes. It is a city that has attracted people for centuries: traders, adventurers, artists, fortune-seekers and, let’s be honest, people with rather less respectable plans too. Our community is part of a long Antwerp tradition: living together in a place where the world has always arrived via the River Scheldt.
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Some houses sit deep in the Seefhoek, one of Antwerp's oldest working-class neighborhoods; some open onto a private garden; one occupies a converted nineteenth-century building nine minutes from the city's museum quarter. The honest answer to "which one is right for me" depends less on marketing copy than on how you actually want your week to go: noisy or quiet, central or leafy, a room or a full apartment, budget-conscious or willing to spend a little more for the address.
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At HOC Living, we believe coliving in Antwerp is about more than just a roof over your head: it's a community that discovers the city together, including through art. That's why we're sharing this month's tip with the HOC Living community: An Apple for the Road, the new solo exhibition by Ben Sledsens at Tim Van Laere Gallery, just around the corner from our Antwerp coliving locations.
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There is a particular quiet that settles into a new apartment around eight in the evening, once the boxes are unpacked and the street outside has become background noise instead of a foreign sound. It is not sadness, exactly. It is the sound of feeling at home in Antwerp not yet having happened — a life with all its furniture and none of its rhythm.
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I’m happily hooked on Antwerp — the city where I was born and which still manages to surprise me every day. From King Square Mansion on Rotterdamstraat, where I live as part of the warm community at HOC Coliving, I cycle into the city almost every day. For a coffee, to do some shopping at The Barn, but above all to soak up Antwerp: the people, the hustle and bustle, the architecture and the countless stories that seem to come to life here in every street.
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At HOC, coliving is about more than sharing a beautiful place to live. It is about community, connection and creating spaces where people genuinely enjoy being together. Seef Yard is a wonderful example: six beautiful HOC coliving properties surrounding a shared green garden — and now also home to Work of co, a brand-new coworking space with 47 workstations. Fluffy, a resident of King Square Mansion and unofficial HOC explorer, decided it was time to go and investigate.
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Byung-Chul Han's The Disappearance of Rituals offers a language for something many of us feel: that modern life has lost some of its rhythm. This article reflects on how coliving can restore a sense of presence through shared ritual.
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HOC has created an incredibly cosy and peaceful home, right in the heart of the bustling Seefhoek neighbourhood, also known as Antwerp 2060 or simply 2060. It has become a place where the hustle and bustle of city life fades into the background and where the beautiful interior design is extremely inviting.
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Sociologist Ray Oldenburg worried the third place was dying. The corner pub, the café, the barbershop — spaces to simply exist around people. At HOC, we think it didn't disappear. It just moved in with us.
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For decades, the idea of "home" followed a familiar script. You graduated, found a job, rented your first studio, bought your own apartment, and eventually settled down. Home was a destination — a permanent place where life unfolded. Today, that story is very different.
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HOC did create an incredible cool and silent space in the midst of the busy quarter Seefhoek, also known as Antwerp 2060 of just 2060. It became a place where the noise of citylife falls apart.
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HOC opened its newest coliving house in Antwerp. DAMCO on Dambruggestraat offers 17 private rooms, a shared patio, and all-inclusive living in one of the city's most vibrant neighbourhoods, starting from €650/month.
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Antwerp, home to Rubens and Van Dyck, is becoming a popular destination for young professionals seeking a place to live.
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After a careful renovation, the house opened in September 2025 as a collection of twelve spacious studios, each with its own bathroom and kitchenette, so every resident has real privacy and independence, not just a bed in a corner.
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“I stayed with HOC for three months and I loved it! I met some amazing people and made good connections. I would definitely recommend staying with them.”
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Before you decide whether coliving could work for you, let us look at a few big myths and see what is true and what is not.
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