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

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

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.