The lecture will describe the relation between the development process of LaBorda, the first housing cooperative built in Barcelona, and its architectural definition. Once the property is at stake and the focus is on use, the requests for the architecture change. In the case of LaBorda, the housing need motivation was also challenged by the transition towards sustainability, in the broadest way possible: political, social, economic and environmental.
Cristina Gamboa is a chartered architect and teacher. She Is currently a Studio Master at Projective Cities, MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design. She studied at the Barcelona School of Architecture ETSAB / UPC, and the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning / University of Stuttgart. Cristina is co-founder of Lacol, a cooperative of architects established in 2014 in Barcelona, where she has focused on researching participative approaches to design and developing cooperative housing and housing policies, tested in on-going projects.
Lacol works from architecture towards social transformation, using architecture as a tool to intervene critically in the local environments. The activity is based on a horizontal system of labor, acting alongside society with the motivation and challenge to achieve a transition towards sustainability in the broadest way possible: political, social, economic and environmental. Lacol’s practice embrace Architecture, Urbanism, Housing policies and Participatory processes, blurring the limits of the different disciplines to define a cross-sectional and participative approach. She has focused on researching participative approaches to design and developing cooperative housing and housing policies, tested in on-going projects.
They had been recognized locally and internationally, recently they won the 2018 City of Barcelona Architecture Award.Her individual and collective work has been published and exhibited in ‘Piso Piloto’ Exhibition opened at the CCCB in Barcelona (2015), Medellín (2016) and Ciudad de México (2017); in the Catalonia Pavilion – Biennale of Venice (2016); in the Barcelona Pavilion – Biennale of Buenos Aires (2017); ‘Together! The New Architecture of the Collective’ opened at the Vitra Museum (Weil am Rhein, Germany), among others.
She has written and lectured about cooperative housing processes, challenges and potentialities of the model and its architectural design. Cristina’s writings include ‘To build housing to build community. The experience of La Borda housing cooperative and its replicability in the context of Barcelona’ (2018); ‘The experience of LaBorda, from the development to the project’ (2016). She also co-edited the book ‘Habitar en comunidad’, Ediciones de la Catarata (2018).
Cristina currently teaches at ETSAB (DPA PIII_IV Contemporary Collective Housing, Associated Professor). She also taught as a Visiting Lecturer at the School of Architecture / Royal College of Art ( ADS7’s co-tutor).
