Cooperative, Collective, Self-Managed: Three Projects in Barcelona, 2017-2019
Lacol Cooperativa de arquitectos, Barcelona, España
Affiliations
Lacol Cooperativa de arquitectos, Barcelona, España
Lacol is an architects’ cooperative established in 2009 in the Sants neighborhood, Barcelona. They work to generate community infrastructures for the sustainability of life, which is a key tool for eco-social transition by means of architecture, cooperation, and participation. Their collective work has been exhibited and recognized locally and internationally, receiving the Mies van der Rohe Prize for Emerging Architects (2022), the Moira Gemmill Prize (WomenAward by AR, 2021), the Barcelona City Architecture Prize (2018), and participating in the Venice Architecture Biennale “How will we live together?” (2021), among others.
Lacol embodies two crucial forms of practice aligned with degrowth principles. First, it is an architect’s cooperative office, and second, their work aims to redefine collective modes of cooperation at various scales. The projects included here were possible in the context of a city that has promoted the commons, created the spaces for, and exemplified a praxis of sensible materials usage, solidarity and social economies, self-organization, minimized environmental impact, and mainly networked cooperative spaces. Together they set urgent examples for anti-extractive practices of impending capitalist growth.
