LACOL ARQUITECTURA COOPERATIVA

Lacol is a cooperative of architects based in the Sants neighbourhood of Barcelona. They work to generate community infrastructures for the sustainability of life as a key tool for the ecosocial transition, through architecture, cooperativism and participation. They work with architecture for social transformation, as a tool to critically intervene in the immediate environment. They are always in parallel with society, acting in a fair and supportive manner starting with a horizontal work system.

They believe that the way to transform the city is based on the active participation of the people who live there and on proactive action. They work on interests related to the quality of the lives of all the people who inhabit the city. The contribution of the architect is made at the heart of the urban movement, helping to translate citizen concerns and put them on paper, providing criteria for the definition of objectives and strategies, as well as tools to define and communicate ideas through drawing, graphic representation, etc. They encourage debate and discussion on the uses of public spaces and the management of urban spaces, city models, participation and heritage recovery, among others.

The architect Ari Artigas will talk to us about the history of the cooperative and its most relevant projects. A face-to-face conference offered by the Architects’ Association of Catalonia’s Tarragona headquarters. The work built by LACOL Arquitectura Cooperativa includes the La Borda housing
cooperative (2014-2018); Comunal Espai Cooperatiu (2016-2020); the La Balma housing cooperative (2017-2021); Coopolis Bcn Phase 0. (2016); refurbishment works and other multi-family housing projects that are in process.