Cohousing in Barcelona

Architecture for the Community

Architecture from Community

Cohousing in Barcelona

David Lorente, Tomoko Sakamoto, Ricardo Devesa, Marta Bugés (eds.)

Expansive housing: From house to village 6

Marta Bugés in conversation with Ricardo Devesa, Tomoko Sakamoto and David Lorente

Right-to-use cooperative cohousing 12

Office of the Councillor for Housing and Renovation and Office of the Housing Manager at Barcelona City Council

Cooperative cohousing 20

Lacol

Sostre Cívic, for a new roof over the right to housing 50

Carles Alcoba - Sostre Cívic

Popular right-to-use cooperative cohousing 95

La Dinamo Fundació

Financing: An essential pillar of access to right-to-use housing 122

Paco Herrero - Llar Jove SCCL

The contribution of housing cooperatives to sustainability 158

Societat Orgànica

Guaranteeing the non-speculative nature of cooperative housing 186

Cristina Grau

Conversations

Joan Barba (JBE Arquitectes Associats) and Eulàlia Tubau (Sostre Cívic) 38

Carles Baiges (Lacol) and Lali Daví (La Dinamo Fundació) 58

Pau Vidal (Pau Vidal Office) and Sònia Hernández (Arquitectura Sana) 106

Diego Carrillo (Celobert) 136

Lis Figueras and Toni Vidal (La Mar d’arquitectes) 166

Marta Peris and José Toral (Peris+Toral Arquitectes), and Jaume Elias (Can 70) 196

Expansive housing: From house to village

Marta Bugés in conversation with Ricardo Devesa, Tomoko Sakamoto i David Lorente

Marta Bugés: Why did you decide to publish a book about cooperative housing? And why right-to-use cohousing in Barcelona?

Ricardo Devesa [RD] One of the fundamental purposes of architecture is the care of the people who inhabit it, especially in residential architecture. The spatial design disciplines, however, should also aspire to improving human relationships. To making urban environments more accessible and liveable, in an inclusive and sustainable way. This book was born from the interest in looking at recent cohousing experiences as an alternative model of community living, with a clear benefit for the individual but also for the community of residents and, beyond that, for the surrounding neighbourhood and for the city as a whole.

Tomoko Sakamoto [TS] Barcelona is an international benchmark for architecture, urban planning and design, precisely because of the constant innovation, experimentation and reflection that focuses on the city. Along those lines, the model of right-to-use cooperative housing, as we learn in the text contributed by the Barcelona City Council Housing Department, began as a pilot project in 2014. A framework agreement, called the ESAL agreement, was eventually signed in 2020 with the most significant entities in the sector of social and cooperative housing in order to prevent housing speculation and promote a new way of living in community, based on participation and solidarity.

Where are we now in the implementation of that model? How has it become an alternative to social housing?

David Lorente [DL] Today, more than 150 families are living within this kind of cooperative framework on municipal land in Barcelona. There aren’t enough available units, true, but they do exist, and they offer a more supportive, sustainable and humane housing alternative. By 2025, the estimate is that there will be 535 units. Hopefully, in just a few years, many more families will be able to participate in this non-profit model of access to housing: as a right and not as a commodity. Right-to-use cooperative housing will help cities improve in terms of solidarity, social justice, and sustainability.

How did you structure the book, and how did you gather the cohousing experiences in Barcelona?

RD The structure of the book centers the focus of attention on architecture as a tool for formalizing a model of living and dwelling in community, but it also looks at how participation plays a role in the processes of the design and maintenance of architecture. That’s why we’ve given a voice to all the agents who are involved in the cohousing model: members of the cooperatives, architects, experts in energy and environmental

Right-to-use cooperative housing projects in Barcelona 2015—2023

Typologies adapted to new ways of living

At a time when the traditional heteronormative nuclear family is no longer the only model of cohousing and relationship networks are taking on new forms, architecture and housing infrastructure must respond to new needs. Moreover, with a feminist perspective on the concept of dwelling, and the de-hierarchisation of the parts of the home by taking into account the whole, we can begin to imagine ‘disjointed houses’ and understand that housing is the whole building, such that the boundaries between rooms, dwellings and the building dissolve.

Shared flats

Some projects include shared flats, not in line with our current idea of flats usually shared by young people on a temporary basis, but as a path to residential emancipation. In this case, private rooms are larger, and residents can enjoy common areas when they want to socialize with others.

Cluster typology

The term cluster describes a type of housing design and distribution implemented in community projects over the past 10 years, especially in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. It is a housing model in which a small set of complete individual dwellings—with a bathroom and kitchen—are grouped around shareduse spaces (kitchen, dining room, living rooms, etc.) to encourage community life. The cluster functions as a small community and is autonomous when it comes to organising its daily operations concerning the rest of the cooperative.

Satellite rooms

Satellite rooms are physically disconnected from the house but belong to it. They are a way of facilitating flexibility over time in our way of living and represent temporary rooms for young members of the family who will soon be emancipated, or a work space separated from domesticity. Since they do not form part of the home it is easier to transfer their use to another unit without having to do any construction.

Sotrac

Empriu

Can 70

La Chalmeta

Abril

La Regadora

La Borda

La Balma

Ruderal

Cirerers

Torrent Viu

La Domèstika

La Xarxaire

La Morada

La Diversa Princesa49

La Balma

Cooperative housing is ‘city making’ in the urban context of the project, developing a process to adapt to reality, giving new meaning to the territory based on its imprints and locales, and opening up community spaces at the street level to weave in collaborations with the neighbourhood.

‘We’re experimenting, one project at a time. In La Balma, for example, the issue of radiant walls or geothermal energy was introduced. Using wood completely changed the system compared to La Borda. Some things seem to repeat themselves because we learn as we go.’ Carles Baiges (Lacol)

Secondary school

Primary care centre 200 m

2 min

La Balma is located on a green axis full of neighbourhood facilities and aims to collaborate as another facility along this axis.

‘City making’ is one of the values of cooperative housing.

Sotrac: The project includes 38

Sotrac

2020 — on-going

Location

La Bordeta.

Sants - Montjuïc

Carrer de la Constitució, 43

Developer

Sotrac SCCL / La Dinamo Fundació

Architects

Lacol Collaborations

Societat Orgànica, PAuS (Dani Calatayud and Coque Claret), M7 Enginyers, Arkenova, Arrevolt, Miguel Nevado and Àurea Acústica Programme

38 residential units with spaces for community use and a space for the social economy and solidarity

Design 2020

Surface area 3,596 m2

Construction Estimate (Hard Costs)

€4,400,000

Can Batlló: Self-managed, community-centric neighbourhood space, of which Sotrac is a part, and where assemblies

The Sotrac housing cooperative won a public tender organized by the Barcelona City Council in 2020 to develop plots reserved for cooperative housing. The lot is part of the Can Batlló complex and is just 100 meters from La Borda. The building will have 38 units distributed over six stories, one of which will adopt a ‘cluster’ format, plus several community spaces and a space intended for a project related to the social economy and solidarity.

All the units are meant to have the same orientation (south-southwest) in order to provide equal interiorexterior and visual conditions, a close connection to the park, maximum solar capture conditions, and adequate cross ventilation. The areas with worse orientation are allocated for vertical circulations and complementary spaces.

The ground floor aims to act as an infrastructure that can remain partially open to the neighbourhood; it the most public space in the building and where most of the co mmunity

spaces are located. There are several types of community spaces according to their degree of openness to the neighbourhood: the main entrances, the kitchen-dining room, a multi-purpose space, and a more domestic zone for children or for use as a workspace.

The design of the building takes into account universal accessibility, inclusivity and the gender perspective both in the private living spaces and in the different community spaces.

Flexibility of the building and new residential models

All the units are floor-through with direct access from a walkway in the courtyard and large terraces facing the park. Units of different sizes and varying morphologies are designed to meet the needs of the different co-living groups.

La Borda:

Sotrac was founded by its prospective members, with the intention of reproducing the cooperative housing model

are held

Block 12 and its immediate surroundings: Future park that incorporates the structure of Block 12 as a facility in the green space

Transformation of the Can Batlló complex, which includes a large park and facilities for the neighbourhood and the city

residential units and community spaces open to the neighbourhood

Empriu: Plot intended for the cooperative housing project in rightto-use, of 40 homes

Satellite rooms

Satellite rooms are introduced to provide a greater degree of flexibility: two per floor, for a total of 10. These self-contained rooms, equipped with shared or private bathrooms, make it possible to expanded or reduce the different residential units in a discontinuous way, offering possibilities for a wide variety of uses: working from home, added autonomy for seniors or teenagers, play spaces or study spaces for children, guest rooms for relatives or friends, etc.

The cluster

Additionally, one of the residential floors is allocated for a cluster, an innovative type of housing design and distribution, seen in community projects in countries like Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In this housing model, a series of small living spaces are grouped around shared spaces (kitchen, dining room and reading/workspace) to further promote collective living during everyday activities.

The satellite rooms

The cluster

Cirerers

Cooperative housing is the participatory design of the spaces in a building that go beyond the housing itself. Access points, transitions, movement, landings, roofs, etc., are also domestic spaces that can welcome multiple forms of community life and create its identity.

Origins of the project

Born in 2010, Celobert is a cooperative of architects, engineers and urban planners. At the time, it was one of the first working cooperatives of architects in the country. It was established in the context of the 2008 financial crisis, which was especially bad for the architecture sector, and hoped to reinvent the profession and remove it somewhat from the stigma of real estate speculation. The foundations of our project were the right to housing, accessible housing models, environmentalism and a commitment to climate change and participatory processes. Before that, in 2003, we participated in the founding of Sostre Cívic, which was later established as a cooperative in 2010.

At first, we were a team of about 15 people organised into two departments: a housing and urban planning department devoted to advising city councils and the public sector on the implementation of housing and urban planning policies; and an architecture and engineering department more focused on building, including both reformation and new construction, and with a major emphasis on environmental protection.

Celobert had always been focused on cooperative housing, and thanks to our history with Sostre Cívic, we decided to submit a joint proposal for this lot. In the case of Cirerers, Sostre Cívic was responsible for everything related to the people who wanted to apply and form a group, and the non-architectural aspects of the development. Celobert was in charge of the architectural proposal, which was the winner in the end.

Sostre Cívic is a housing cooperative model that works in phases, with several parallel projects in the development and cohabitations phases. It has

a technical team with its own ideas and strategic lines. For this reason, they also initially participated in a series of technical decisions affecting the architecture. In the initial phase, it was a dialogue between the technical team of Sostre Cívic, the main group of initial users and Celobert, which later made the proposals based on this dialogue.

Project commitments

The project has three major commitments: to the city, the community, and the environment. In the urban context, the building preserves the line of the cityscape through two decisions that shape the project. On the one hand, the layout for the façade on the third

Architect Celobert

A conversation with Diego Carrillo

Resources

Technical team

Fiare Banca Ètica Financing

Sostre Cívic Management

Arç Building and construction insurance Matriu Facilitation

Col·lectiu Ronda Legal advice

Support agents

La Constructiva Construction

Intercooperation diagram

Barcelona City Council Transfer of public land use rights

Upstairs there’s a terrace / lookout with views of the entire city. It has become the main space in the building for gatherings, celebrations and parties. The community uses this space for very dynamic activities and a lot of interaction: there’s something going on every weekend, from barbecues to yoga, and outdoor cinema to sewing workshops.

I think the major lesson is that common spaces should be as flexible as possible. During the design process, people do not know how they will live in community and use these spaces because they have never experienced it. Sure, you can do preliminary surveys, participatory processes, etc., but the architecture must not condition the uses in excess.

Wood structure

The use of wood is the third pillar of the project and, from the start, it was a firm environmental commitment. We made a clear promise in this regard, and the group and Sostre Cívic supported it. We have had to give up certain things. One was an underground parking garage; when we started specifying construction prices we saw that it was out of the price range. The group— not us—decided to give up the parking garage in favour of building with wood.

The project approaches the issue of the environment from an analytical view of the life cycle of the building as a whole and with a strong commitment to the use of organic materials, such as wood. There are 730 m3 of

The building interior has concrete tiles on the ground floor and landings to connect the private and public spaces.

Cirerers is an eco-friendly building constructed with wood. With eight floors, it is the tallest timber building in Spain.

Once running, it will reach the efficiency level of passive house standards.

La Xarxaire

Cooperative housing is the exploration of mixed building systems to respectfully adapt to the existing urban landscape, the typological characteristics of the project and, in general, to commit to the environmental sustainability of the planet.

Given the severe global housing crisis, we’re fighting to develop an alternative culture of habitation. We need architecture that responds to the new modes of living together, while learning to implement collective generosity above individualism. Architecture by the community and for the community.

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Cohousing in Barcelona

Architecture from / for the community

Published by Actar Publishers, New York, Barcelona and Barcelona City Council

Editorial and Publishing Council of the City of Barcelona

Jordi Martí Grau, Marc Andreu Acebal, Águeda Bañón Pérez, Xavier Boneta

Lorente, Marta Clari Padrós, Núria Costa

Galobart, Sonia Frias Rollon, Pau Gonzàlez Val, Laura Pérez Castaño, Jordi Rabassa Massons, Joan Ramon

Riera Alemany, Pilar Roca Viola, Edgar Rovira Sebastià and Anna Giralt Brunet.

Communication Director

Águeda Bañón

Editorial Services Director

Núria Costa Galobart

Direcció de Serveis Editorials

Passeig de la Zona Franca, 66

08038 Barcelona

Tel. +34 93 402 31 31 w ww.barcelona.cat/barcelonallibres

Publication

Edited by

Marta Bugés, Ricardo Devesa, David Lorente, Tomoko Sakamoto

Graphic Design

spread. Tomoko SakamotoDavid Lorente

Texts

Office of the Councillor for Housing and Renovation and Office of the Housing Manager at Barcelona City Council

Carles Alcoba (Sostre Cívic)

Cristina Grau

La Dinamo Fundació

Paco Herrero (Llar Jove SCCL)

Societat Orgànica

Conversations with Carles Baiges

Joan Barba

Diego Carrillo

Lali Daví

Jaume Elias

Lis Figueras and Toni Vidal

Sònia Hernández

Marta Peris and José Toral

Eulàlia Tubau

Pau Vidal

Translations

Angela Kay Bunning, 6-11, 36, 56, 82, 95, 96-101, 104, 122-125, 132, 150-157, 164, 182-185, 194-195, 206-209, 210-214

Colleen McCarroll, 12-31, 34, 38-53, 54, 58-78, 84-91, 102, 106-121, 126-129, 130, 134-148, 158-161, 162, 166-179, 186-191, 192, 196-204

Printing and binding

Arlequin & Pierrot, Barcelona

Acknowledgements

To all the architects and photographers, members of cooperative associations, and housing cooperatives with their communities of residents who participated so generously and/or contributed their time and knowledge as well as the documentation and graphic material necessary for the realisation of this book.

All rights reserved

© of the edition: Actar Publishers and Barcelona City Council, 2023 © of the texts, their authors  © of the graphic documentation, their authors  © of the photographs, their authors

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Indexing

ISBN: 978-1-63840-090-5 (Actar)

ISBN: 978-84-9156-510-9 (Barcelona City Council)

DL: B 11003-2023

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023931712

Printed in Europe

Publication date: June 2023

Photographic credits

© Manel Armengol, 35

© Joan Barba, 44 (right), 45, 46, 49 (top)

© Antonio Cansino, 146 (left)

© Chopo, 75 (left)

© DEL RIO BANI , 165, 169, 177, 180-181

© Andrés Flajszer, 109, 114, 115, 119 (top right), 119 (bottom right)

© Joan Guillamat, 133, 135, 137, 141, 150-151

© José Hevia, 103, 105, 111, 113, 119 (top left), 119 (bottom left)

© IMHAB, 12, 17, 55, 68, (bottom)

© La Borda SCCL, 60

© La Chalmeta, 6, 121

© La Dinamo Fundació, 94

© La Mar d’arquitectes, 163, 166, 167, 168, 170, 172, 174, 175, 176, 178, 179

© La Morada SCCL, 156

© Lacol SCCL, 20-21, 32, 57, 61, 63 (bottom), 68 (top), 70, 79, 185

© Gabriel López, 63 (top)

© Joan Massagué, 144-145, 146 (right), 149

© Lluc Miralles, 66, 75 (right)

© Guifré de Peray, 147

© Sostre Cívic SCCL, 37, 39, 40, 44 (left), 196

© Andreu Trias, 41, 47, 49 (bottom)

© Álvaro Valdecantos, 69, 71, 72

© Milena Villalba, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88, 90, 92-93

Front cover: © La Morada

Back cover: La Borda, © Lacol

The content, data and graphic presentation of the chapter ‘Cooperative housing. Community living at right-to-use cooperative housing ’ (pp. 20-31) originally come from the traveling exhibition ‘Cooperative cohousing’, presented in Barcelona in 2022, produced by the Barcelona City Council and the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation of Barcelona, and managed by Barcelona Regional.

Curator

Lacol

Audiovisual

Pau Faus

Production design and installation

Central de Projectes

Exhibition design lacreativa.com