Access to housing, co-operative movements and the La Borda project are the protagonists of the exhibition that the College of Architects of Catalonia is hosting until 15 April. This is the exhibition ‘Living differently. The experience of La Borda and the new cooperatives’, curated by Lacol and Álvaro Valdecantos.
The exhibition highlights the resurgence of housing cooperative movements in recent times, similar to those experienced and initiated in the early twentieth century and around the 70s, to create a collective and neighborhood response to access to housing on a non-speculative basis.
This is the case of La Borda, a project started in 2012 in the framework of the recovery of Can Batlló, an old industrial site of the late nineteenth century located in the district of Sants-Montjuic, on a plot leased by Barcelona City Council for 75 years. This project, in which the Lacol architects ’cooperative took part, became the first new co-housing building in the city of Barcelona.
Co-housing is a widespread housing formula in northern Europe and has already installed in Catalonia as an advantageous option. The characteristic feature of cooperative housing is the promotion of the shared use of basic infrastructures and the creation of spaces that encourage community life, as well as promoting compliance with environmental and sustainable criteria.
The exhibition ‘Living differently. The experience of La Borda and the new cooperatives will also end with an online conference by Martino Tattara, who together with Pier Vittorio Aureli form the Dogma studio, based in Brussels.