Our Poblenou project has been awarded by the Spanish Association of Public Housing and Land Managers.

It is the third recognition that La Balma receives in 2022, after being selected by the FAD Awards and the Ibero-American Architecture Biennial.

THESpanish Association of Public Housing and Land Managers (AVS) has recognized up to five Barcelona projects in the last edition of Premios AVS, among which it is La Balma, our cooperative housing project in right of use built on municipal land in Poblenou. The construction of the building of La Balma has been recognized with the first prize in the category of best new building, shared equally with the promotion of public housing in Bon Pastor, by the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation of Barcelona (IMHAB). The jury evaluated "the self-management of the model, the ductility of the homes and the different environmental strategies of energy efficiency, materials and waste used".

The awards were announced on June 27 in Oviedo, in the context of the celebration of the ordinary general assembly of this association, of which territorial public entities and public bodies or public sector companies that work in the promotion and management of social housing are part. With this award, it is the third recognition he has received La Balma in 2022, after arriving as a finalist in April for Architecture FAD awards and to the Ibero-American Biennale of Architecture.  

La Balma construction began in 2019 and from July 2021 it hosts 20 coexistence units in the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona. It was our first new construction cooperative housing project, and the first carried out by La Constructiva, the first non-profit service cooperative oriented towards the construction of homes of this type and driven by Sostre Cívic. The aim of this new pioneering cooperative is to reverse the current construction model by opting for a construction that respects ethical values ​​in a framework of managed, controlled and reliable economic production. Currently, it is developing rehabilitation works for the La Xicoria projects, in Olesa de Montserrat, Clau Mestra, in La Floresta (Sant Cugat) and the completion of different homes from the trial and retraction.

The design was carried out by the cooperative architecture studies of The cabbage i La Boqueria, through a participatory process with all of the project's partners. They proposed a building with 2 types of structure that optimize the functions of each material, cost, speed of construction and environmental impact. The contact with the ground and the street is made with a reinforced concrete structure, and for the homes and community spaces a laminated wood structure is proposed, offering comfort, healthy spaces and with a very positive environmental impact on the building as a whole ( organic and light material). It is a light building, where reusable and removable materials predominate, which allows to reduce the foundation and directly the materials of mineral origin used in the building.

Recognition of public-community collaboration to build more cooperative housing in Barcelona

Beyond La Balma, the AVS Awards have also recognized, with an entry in the category of best performance in the field of administration and management of the social housing stock the Agreement with ESAL non-profit entities, a public-community collaboration project to promote 1.000 cooperative and rental homes on municipal land promoted by the IMHAB, Gestors d'habitat social de Catalunya (GHS), the Federation of Housing Cooperatives of Catalonia (Habicoop ), the Solidarity Economy Network (XES) and the Coordinator of Social Housing Foundations (Cohabitac).

Crític: La Balma, the endorsement of a job well done by La Constructiva.