‘Gestar/Habitar. Estratègies per a l’habitatge social a Barcelona’ has been selected for the FAD Awards for Thought and Critique 2024. The book by Caterina Figuerola and Ibon Bilbao is a collaboration between Barcelona Llibres (Barcelona City Council’s publishing service) and the Architects' Association of Catalonia (COAC).
In this publication, featuring a whole series of plans, drawings, infographs and photographs, you also find the voices of people. It is not just a book of architecture. It is also a story with the testimonies of citizens who live in social housing, of the people who built the housing and those who promoted the development. The full story of social housing, from the development schedule to the experience of living in it.
As the book explains, “addressing the process of creating social housing by looking at all its complexities is an essential tool for being able to understand the current state of the public housing stock in big urban centres”.
A choral book
This is a choral book in which all those involved in the process of developing the housing and in the process of living in the housing have a voice. A voice that has taken shape through a wide variety of documents: drawings, plans, renderings, photographs, reflections, discussions, testimonies… A series of situations that invite reflection.
In the 2023 edition, the award for thought and critique was awarded jointly to the books Arquitectura do Bacalhau e outras espécies, by Dafne Editora, and to España fea. El caos urbano, el mayor fracaso de la democracia, published by Debate.