Lacol

Cooperative housing projects can be used as a framework for experimenting in the production of collective housing. This makes it possible to overcome some of the limitations of conventional developments of public and private housing. The particularities of the cooperative model offer the possibility of questioning pre-established values and practices. And architecture must respond. To rethink the relationship of the surroundings to community life, it is necessary to redefine the transition between public and private, blurring the limits of domestic space. It is also important to rethink new collective programs adapted to a model of coexistence for each community. Spatially, circulation plays a central role together with the cooperative’s communal spaces. It, indeed, can help generate encounters and instances for socialization among the members of the cooperative as well as with the neighborhood at large. This is especially true in the case of the project represented in this installation, where the building extends inward the concept of public space and the multiple functionalities of the city.

Image 1 – How will we live together?
The multipurpose room of La Borda housing cooperative (Barcelona), seen from the patio. The intermediate spaces of the project are areas for community activies.
Photo: Institut Municipal de l’Habitatge i Rehabilitació de Barcelona

Image 2 – Sneak peek of the project
The curtain that will separate the multipurpose room and the patio, and that will travel to Venice to create the different spaces of the intervention.

Institut Ramon Llull– Catalan Language and Culture
Barcelona City Hall (Ajuntament de Barcelona)
Spanish Government–Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban
Agenda Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)

Lacol; La Borda
Photography: Álvaro Valdecantos
Model: BUIT Taller