WAO, which stands for We Are Open, is the startup of the OneDay Group that operates in the real estate sector with the aim of designing, creating and managing smart, inclusive and innovative coworking and coliving spaces for startups and freelancers. The startup was born from the experience gained with the OneDay campus consisting of C30, C32 and PL7: three places born from an urban regeneration project and which now host startups, freelance professionals and events. CEO and co-founder of WAO is Massimiliano Zampini who, with WAO, aims to innovate a sector that needs to be reconciled with the speed and technological approach typical of a startup. WAO’s mission is to create spaces for sharing that respond to the needs, not only work, of the so-called “young professionals”, a target that is not personal but that unites people who have the same characteristics: a dynamic life, the desire to make new experiences and acquaintances, and the need to find a physical place as a point of reference. “We will do this by creating two types of spaces: coworking and coliving, the places where people spend the most time, work and home, and which can host other activities that can integrate with their daily routine, creating 360-degree experiences,” Zampini comments in a note . Two important values of WAO’s projects are urban regeneration and adaptation to the neighbourhood that hosts them. In many cities there are abandoned places that, in order to be transformed into services for citizens, need an idea and an operator to implement it, and which must also have the ability to reconcile with the culture and life of the neighborhood where they are located so as not to become foreign bodies. Let’s take the example of PL7, the coworking space inaugurated in October 2023 in the Isola area of Milan: it is a space that reflects the lively and artistic soul of the neighborhood, the aesthetic project, curated by Gaia Marzo Corporate Brand director of OneDay, and the themed rooms pay homage to its iconic places and its peculiarities, and in which we will give life to activities in synergy with the realities already present in the area”. WAO also announces that it has closed a pre-owned round worth 800 thousand euros, funding that will be used by the startup to strengthen the team, carry out projects for the current buildings C30, C32 and PL7 and create an investment plan for the construction of new coworking and coliving spaces.
Fuorisalone 2024 and coliving with Real Step
In the coming months, there will be at least two projects in which WAO is engaged and which will allow the startup to realize its goals. If it is true that WAO’s places are integrated into the district that hosts them, PL7 (located in Isola) could not miss an activity during the Fuorisalone 2024: the building will in fact be the setting that will host from 16 to 21 April “Community is the happiness of design”, the Hiro Design pop-up store resulting from the collaboration with Isola Design District, The design platform that is based right in the neighborhood. Finally, 2024 will also be the year of the start of work on the first coliving: WAO has in fact signed a contract with Real Step, a real estate development company specializing in the sustainable urban regeneration of former industrial sites, for the management of the property in Via Barrella 6 in Milan, in the Certosa District, the district located in the north-west of the city and the subject of an important redevelopment project promoted by Real Step. The building, purchased by the company in 2022, has a gross area of 11 thousand square meters and will become WAO’s first coliving that will house housing units, training centers and places for the community to gather and meet. “The Milano Certosa District is a new model of urban regeneration, where the redevelopment of spaces is developed around the birth of communities that pass through the integration into the district of all the services necessary to meet the needs of people in their daily lives. The coliving project fits perfectly into this idea, because it will offer innovative, welcoming living places designed for people’s well-being – comments Vincenzo Giannico, general manager of Real Step – . We believe that realities like WAO, with which we share these values, not only have the ability to renew the face and strengthen the experience of this area of the city, but above all to promote the aggregation of many young people who have in common needs and new forms of experientiality. For this reason, we are sure that coliving will soon become one of the points of reference in the district”.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©