The building Cirerers, initiative of Sostre Cívic and designed by Celobert, is built on one of the public lots given by Barcelona City Council

This cooperative project has a self-managed and community operation, and aims to fight against speculation while promoting the social and solidarity economy market

A new cooperative housing project in right of use in Barcelona is about to become a reality with the completion of the building's wooden structure Cirerers, in the neighborhood of Roquetes. It is our second new construction project in the city, after starting in September 2019 the construction of La Balma, in Poblenou, both on municipal land and given in competition in 2016 by Barcelona City Council. Today, Thursday, January 28, the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Ada Colau, and her councilor for Housing, Lucía Martín, made their first institutional visit to the building guided by a representation of the cooperative's members and future neighbors , apart from the team of architects and those responsible for the work.

The project Cirerers it is located in Plaça de les Dones de Nou Barris. Will be an eight-storey building (including the ground floor), thirty-two dwellings and community spaces, defined in a participatory way between the technical team of architects Celobert and the group of people who will live there, with the intention of resisting the loss of community life generated by the commercialization of housing. 

The material used in Cirerers it is mainly wood, and also lime mortar on the facades and plasterboard in the interiors. All of them are biodegradable materials with a low ecological footprint, since their production, transport and recycling involve very few CO2 emissions. "The project of Cirerers is taking a step forward in constructive innovation and is already today the tallest wooden building in the state, with eight floors" says the architect Diego Carrillo. This confirms, once again, the commitment of housing cooperatives to social and environmental innovation, which in 2018 was already able to promote the La Borda building, in the Bordeta neighborhood of Barcelona, ​​with seven floors, also of wood, and which is already inhabited. 

Cirerers: collective and social housing 

Co-operative housing in right of use is an alternative model of access to housing that aims to transform the real estate market, promoting new, more communal forms of coexistence. It also avoids speculation, since collective ownership prevents individual profit from renting or selling the home. 

Carmen Perales is one of our driving partners Cirerers: "We want to create a network of mutual support that allows a communal, self-managed and assembly life. We currently meet in assembly and work to strengthen an alternative model of access to housing and a community life rooted in the neighborhood and the people". Estel Andreu, another participant from Cirerers, ensures that this project "it is the seed of an alternative model of access to housing in our city. We want to weave and recover networks that allow us to live together freer from doors in and doors out". 

The architectural project has also taken into account the social dimension of the building. Diego Carrillo, architect of the project, emphasizes that "the building is designed from a community point of view and therefore has a street-landing on each floor, where users can go out, play or spread their clothes. It also has indoor community spaces on the ground floor, open to the neighborhood and the square".

Thanks to their size, cooperative housing developments in right of use have an impact on many areas of the social and solidarity economy and contribute to creating an authentic Catalan social market, which can solve all needs without going through the economy capitalist

With this idea was born, for example, La Constructiva, the first non-profit cooperative oriented towards the construction of cooperative housing in right of use, and which is currently in charge of the construction of the building Cirerers. But there are many other entities that also participate in this project: Celobert is in charge of the architectural design and the direction of the works, Arç of building and works insurance, Matriu of the group accompaniment, the Col·lectiu Ronda of legal advice, Gestió Integral of support in the economic and fiscal field, and everything has been possible thanks to the funding granted by Fiare Banca Ètica.