The project Cirerers born withaward of one of the public lots from the Barcelona City Council's 2016 competition for our cooperative: the site in Plaça de les Dones de Nou Barris, in the Roquetes neighborhood.
It is the second new construction project of Sostre Cívic in the city, after starting in September 2019 the construction of La Balma, in Poblenou. It is a eight-storey building (including the ground floor), thirty-two homes and community spaces.
From April 1, 2022, we have a group of people living there grouped in various types of family or cohabitation units, who have different origins or professions. We are united by common concerns, experiences in collaborative environments and the search for ways of life that respect people and the environment. As the starting point of the community project, we drafted a ideology which is the framework from which the activities, complicities and constructions of relationships, group and building are developed.

We understand that housing is a basic human right and therefore should not be subject to speculation. The isolation caused by commodification has led to the loss of community life. This project was born as resistance to this model.
It is a self-managed coexistence project based on an assembly operation that encourages cooperation and mutual help. We want to weave and recover networks that allow us a freer common life of doors in and doors out.
HOW DID WE MAKE THE PROJECT REAL?
Between 2018 and 2019, we designed the building in a participatory way with the technical team of architects Celobert. After several meetings, workshops and dynamics, we decided to equip the building with places that will facilitate the relationship, improve the quality of life, and contribute to the sustainability of the building, winning in community spaces and for the neighborhood.
So, 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 hang out their clothes. It also has communal interior spaces on the ground floor, open to the neighborhood and the square.

The neighborhood community project
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.
On the ground floor of the building is located theSocial Treasury, an associated work cooperative dedicated to the trade of products from agroecology.
The architectural project
The lot is a 428 m2 plot of land located on Carrer del Pla dels Cirerers, 2-4, We wanted to have quality shared spaces, which allow us to liberate the functions of the interior of the private spaces to give them to the community, so we stop using up 190m2 of buildable land on the site bet on creating community spaces. We have built some small private living spaces (50 m2 on average), which are offset by 771 m2 of community use space.
The material we use a 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.
Also, our project it is taking a step forward in constructive innovation and is already today the tallest wooden building in the state, with eight floors. We thus confirm, once again, the commitment of housing cooperatives to social and environmental innovation.

AN EXAMPLE OF INTERCOOPERATION
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 of 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.
DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN CIRERERS?
Cirerers it is currently full and has no vacancies. If the project is canceled at any time, all members of the cooperative will be notified. We remind you that the main criterion when transferring the right to assign the use of a home is theseniority order a Sostre Cívic, as contained in article 14 of our statutes. If you are not yet a member, you can do so fromthis page!



And if you want to contact us with any questions or comments, you can write to us at info@cirerers.sostrecivic.cat
The lot where the project is being built Cirerers is a municipal lot, ceded by Barcelona City Council in 2017.
