Live in collective: Dwelling cooperative in Almenara
A collective habitat is proposed between cooperative members, building and territory. It is inserted in a rural area whose landscape value requires attention to integration into the landscape. The proposal is carried out through a series of pieces that connect with collective spaces responding to the topography of the place. The project is aware of the environmental crisis and pursues strategies to fight it, from construction to renewable energy generation.
Cross-border/international
Spain
Spain
{Empty}
Almenara
Mainly rural
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
The project gives an answer to the need of reconsidering the current housing governed by the rules of the devastating market. It is inserted in a rural area whose landscape value requires attention to integration into the landscape. A collective habitat is proposed between cooperative members, building and territory. The proposal is carried out through a series of pieces that connect with collective spaces responding to the topography of the place. The project is aware of the environmental crisis and pursues strategies to fight it, from construction to renewable energy generation.
Dwelling cooperative
rurality
energetic community
territory
landscape
“There is nothing wrong with having a community garden, but we must worry about the commons on a large scale”
With this statement, David Harvey made it very clear: we tend to reduce our range of action to the minimum scale, losing sight of other higher levels where the big decisions that determine the future of our cities are finally made.
They are taking us to circles of a certain type of inbreeding and theoretical-practical self-consumption, we need a global vision of the city and occupy the spaces where the big decisions of the city are made.
We are allowed to reuse empty lots or buildings, but we are denied access to the large operations that shape the future of our cities
With them, he fulfills a double objective: to offer us entertainment and to justify a patina of social commitment established by political correctness.
We need a road map for our cities, otherwise we run the risk that our efforts will be nothing more than scattered patches on a sinking ship, Band-Aids on the body of a terminally ill patient.
The mainly goals that have been tried to achieve in therms of aesthetic and quality of experience for people are:
- Use of green materials, mainly wood which has a sense of comfort on the user.
- Integration in the landscape, taking it into account when designing the project.
- Accesibility in rural places are mandatory for a great user experience.
- Interchangeable pieces of the house that allow the growment or decrease attending to the people needs.
- Enhancing the views it's crucial for a good way of living.
- The generation of common spaces where the community gathers.
More info it's detailed on the attached files. Please consult the graphic information.
“New forms of urban participation are necessary to develop participatory processes that include women and men in all phases of urban development” (Beall, 1996)
increase the participation of women, who despite being 51% of the world population are still frequently excluded in decision-making.
urbanism is not neutral, the space we inhabit reflects power dynamics and gives priorities and visibility to some elements or needs over others. By incorporating diversity of gender experiences, these power dynamics can be transformed and the participatory process can make issues not previously considered visible.
As Pascuala Campos de Michelena (1996) points out, on many occasions the needs that daily life jobs entail are forgotten, which is why it is important to make these tasks visible and to demonstrate the essential role they play for the maintenance of any society. The activities related to the attention and care of children, the elderly and the sick, and all work related to hygiene, food and affective care are considered solvable in a "natural" way, that is, resolved in most cases by women. For practical purposes, this implies that in most cases they are not taken into account when planning the territory and making public policies.
Although the gender perspective makes the reproductive sphere visible and that women continue to be the ones who carry out these tasks for the most part, participatory dynamics must be developed from a transformative position that reflects the needs of women according to their realities, but without constraining women in their role as caregivers and without perpetuating gender stereotypes.
There is always a kind of tension between how we imagine life will develop in the spaces we think and project and how, really, the course of a full life transforms and, sometimes, exceeds the forecasts we had made.
In order to reduce that distance, it is important to carry out an intense exercise in empathy: understand the needs and ways of living, and glimpse the changes in which a society is immersed, in order to better project all those buildings and urban spaces that are necessary for full development of community life.
Drawing up city projects with the public as a guide and as an accomplice allows any initiative to start from an agreed ideology and to generate a collective argument in favor of the proposals undertaken.
The direct involvement of citizens in the construction processes of the city and the territory generates a greater awareness in the population about collective issues and increases the sense of belonging and responsibility towards the projects and common spaces that are decided to be built.
The processes of citizen involvement should help us to better understand the society and the actors who will set foot on the drawn scenes, to transcribe their desires and turn them into material realities.
Participation is neither neutral nor universal, since it can be defined based on the prevailing values and social constructions in society, perpetuating hierarchies and roles within communities. Therefore, it is necessary to apply the gender perspective to promote the equitable and balanced participation of different people.
As Sherry R. Arnstein (1969) already pointed out, in a participatory process there can be different levels of involvement depending on the power attributed to the participating people, ranging from the minimum to the maximum: levels
Gender is a social and cultural construction based on the biological differences between the sexes that assigns roles, behaviors, identities and responsibilities and, at the same time, limitations to girls, women, boys, men and trans people. They are social constructs, not innate characteristics, and therefore can be changed. Gender differences translate into economic and social inequalities that materialize in the urban environment.
The disciplines which are reflected on the concept has to do with architecture. That means, every knowledge field is involved in some way. And the highly disparate relationship between topics such as social behavior or construction constitute the essence of the concept. Being able to control the different aspects that intervene in the project gives it a complexity that a priori makes it difficult to understand and execute, but that inevitably cannot be otherwise. Complexity and contradiction in architecture as defended by Venturi in his acclaimed publication, it's held on the basis of the concept.
The creation of a local energy community is proposed, a system whose function is threefold. Generate a service to the place where it is inserted, in this case the generation and distribution of energy, thus avoiding becoming a parasite of the territory. On the other hand, a common purpose is defined for the cooperative members that keeps them cohesive and, finally, a sustainable response to the climate emergency situation.
With the desire to generate a commitment to the project and in accordance with the PROP guide of the Generalitat Valenciana, a beneficiary is considered to be a renewable energy community when it meets the following conditions:
- Entity that is based on open and voluntary participation, is autonomous and is effectively controlled by its members that are located in the vicinity of the renewable energy projects owned by the group.
- The purpose of the group's activity must be to provide environmental, economic or social benefits to its members or to the local areas where it operates rather than for financial gain.
- For compliance with the local activity requirement, members are considered to be located in the vicinity of renewable energy projects, if they carry out their activity or reside within a maximum radius of fifty kilometers from the project site.
- The activities of the group must be, among others: the generation of energy from renewable sources, the distribution, supply, consumption, aggregation, energy storage, provision of energy efficiency services, provision of services recharging for electric vehicles or other energy services.
- The participation of local entities in the project may consist of participation in the investment of the project or in the transfer of municipally owned spaces to carry out the installations subject to subsidy.
The whole concept could be transferred to another territory, there's only one thing that would obviously change, and that's the land. Knowing the particularities of each landscape is the basis of generating a successful community. The land tells us wich are the materials that can be provided with, the energy that is available or the morfology of the terrain which will dicatate how the buildings are set. Construction rules are also a constraint that will depend on each emplacement.
Understanding the way of living of each territory assures a great design of the common spaces.
It is not possible to think of urbanizing modern cities if we do not think of developing the countryside. Some of the city dwellers will return to the countryside. But if this remains what it is today, no one will return. For this, it is necessary to rearrange the land, build cooperative villages and establish a new type of farm, using the machinery of modern culture. (Le corbusier)
This argument hold by Le Corbusier is still valid. By designing this new land spots where a new community emerge, it's been creating a new way of inhabit the territory, following the criteria that the climate change dictates to us as a conscientious society. Defining the local is the only way to access the whole thing. A general vision is necessary, but it tends to remain on a thought rather than a formal expression, which it's easier to manage at a lower scale.
