Lleialtat Santsenca Civic Centre
Barcelona ES
H Arquitectes
2017
Type
Civic
Tags
community infrastructures, civic spaces, architecture for the commons, New European Bauhaus
Visitability
Allowed
Description
Three starting points: understanding the historic value of Lleialtat Santsenca (1928),an old working class cooperative in the Sants neighborhood; knowing to the detail the building’s (physical) state to maintain as much as possible; and being sensitive to the whole collaborative process launched in 2009 by neighborhood organizations to recover the building.To this end, four basic objectives were set out: first, taking advantage of everything that could be used from the original; second, defining an intervention strategy marking out the essential actions, conservative or not, allowing to recover and increase the potential uses of all those spaces; third, to establish an intensive dialogue – and tense, if due – with context; and fourth, to develop a sustainable proposal, regarding the work on the existing as well as the new interventions.The building consist of three structural bodies: the main one, onto Olzinelles and Altafulla streets, houses the two main halls (old shop on the ground floor and atrium on the first floor); the central one, with access from Altafulla street; and the interior one, without access from the street, which is L-shaped.(Description provided by the architects)