The project wikihousingwinner of the municipal call for BIT Habitat ‘The proactive city’, invite 50 young to reflect on the right to housing and to build with their own ideas and hands (and recycled materials) a prototype of alternative and sustainable housing
that guarantee the Right to decent housing is one of the unfinished business in every city, especially in the Catalan capital, it is an idea that is almost as widely agreed upon as that young people are one of the groups with the most difficulties accessing it. This is what they themselves shouted (metaphorically) at the first edition of the Fòrum Jove. “That we leave our eyebrows studying and not find work, or find jobs so poorly paid that they do not allow us to emancipate ourselves in a city with unaffordable rentstakes its toll on our mental health, crystal generation nothing”, summarized the generational malaise one of the participants in the pioneering citizen participation experience promoted in the Catalan capital.
With the aim of channeling -and, becoming grandiloquent, trying to eradicate- this malaise is born wikihousing, unique winning initiative of the call BIT Habitat, ‘The proactive city’, which suggests that a group of 50 young people with very different profiles think, design and even build a young housing prototype with the minor ecological impact possible.
The (other) heritage of Mobile
They are very happy because they have managed to get all the material -which is not little- left over from the Mobile World Congress: glass, MDF panels, metal structures… “Thermodynamic heritage, as we call it. We have discovered that within the town hall there are full industrial warehouses in Can Tunis”, says the architect David Braveone of the promoters of ATRI, Inclusive Repopulation Tactical Groups, ideologues among other projects of approx, the first controversial, but later award-winning social flats in shipping containers, from which he drinks wikihousing; initiative of Straddle3, Societat Orgànica and La Hidra Cooperativa.
They started from three ideas. The first, that young people are victims of a “residential precariousness” the result of housing policies that cause a Flight of talent. The second, that young people are especially concerned about environmental issues; with what the ecological dimension was key (avoid billet contaminant Y search circular construction). And, the third, that it was necessary to “break with the rejection that young people receive in a gerontocratic society that doesn’t take them into account”. “That’s why wikihousing It is considered as a process of multidisciplinary education and training. has an important part of empowerment. to reflect on how did we get to this point and to help them think about possible alternatives& rdquor ;, he underlines.
co-design
“With the Appropriate we have shown that in a week the structure of a building can be erected more economically and with fewer emissions, and wikihousing goes in that line; with a fully participatory processin which the co-design will be done by everyone, and with an assisted self-construction part, solar walk, and a monitoring part of the building: look at your consumption… All of community way, with the culture of ‘do it together’, as a way to combat the paternalism of the administration & rdquor ;, continues the architect.
In a short time, they have signed up 50 young through your website. Of diverse profiles, something very important for the promoters, who wanted to avoid another well-intentioned elitist project. About half are linked to architecture studios -logical, on the one hand- but the other half, no.
The ambitious goal is build between two and three -depending on the dimensions- public housing for young people with a communal area with a budget of 100,000 euros on a public site donated by the town hall, with reused materials, with the activist workforce of the participants and with the collaboration of the Xarxa d’Ateneus de Manufacture de Barcelona and of teachers of College of Architects who will teach them. Some prototypes that will be delivered to the city council in a year so that it has them.
With the Aprops we have shown that in a week the structure of a building can be erected more economically and with fewer emissions
It’s not quite closed yet, but it’s very likely they’ll build them in the Sec Town (They have already studied a site that meets all the conditions) neighborhood very affected by gentrification, another of the things they fight against.
“We’re hacking the rules and conventional situations. In a year we will deliver to the town hall some houses that can be dismantled. From then on, what happens to them now… & rdquor ;, reflects Bravo.
collective thought
Related news
Araitz Villalba She is one of the 50 young women who have joined the adventure. He is 22 years old, studies architecture and lives in the Eixample with his parents. “As a theoretical idea, wikihousing I found it very powerful. The process of thinking well collectively what are the needs instead of just looking for the quick fix,” he reflects.
Another of the things that attracts him to the project -this one not so much as a young person than as architecture student- is the fact that, for six months, they will be able to know what is consumed in those homes. “Normally no matter how sustainable you build a house, you hand over the keys and lose track of it. You can’t analyze consumption. Here for six months we will be seeing the real consumption to be able to study it. We will be able to see and live if the house meets the expectations that we had placed on it, also with its community function. All with the idea that one day it will become more than just a pilot test and open paths”, he fantasizes Villalba, who, for now, aspires to “learn a lot”.