Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

The Spanish Association of Housing and Land Public Managers (AVS) has recognized five Barcelona projects in the latest edition of the AVS Awards. Among them, they are the cooperative housing project on municipal land in La Balma and the promotion of public housing in Bon Pastor, from the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation of Barcelona (IMHAB), awarded both as first prize in the category of best new construction.

The awards were revealed yesterday in Oviedo, in the context of the celebration of the ordinary general assembly of this association. Several regional public entities and public organizations or public sector companies that work in the promotion and management of social housing are part of this association.

In addition, the AVS has also awarded with a second prize in the category of best environmental management for the IMHAB’s ‘Industrialized Housing’ project, which promotes the use of innovative construction systems. Industrialized housing makes it possible to reduce the execution time of the works and is more sustainable, since it fundamentally uses natural or reused materials. In the specifications published for new tenders project and construction of IMHAB’s industrialized housing, the architectural quality, the reduction of construction times, the reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions associated with the manufacture of materials represent the 85% of the weight of the score to choose the companies that will carry out these projects.

The AVS has also recognized, with a second prize in the category of best performance about administration and management of the social housing stock, the Agreement with non-profit entities ESAL, a public-community collaboration project to promote 1,000 cooperative homes and rental on municipal land promoted by the IMHAB, Social Housing Managers of Catalonia (GHS), the Federation of Housing Cooperatives of Catalonia (Habicoop), the Solidarity Economy Network (XES) and the Coordinator of Social Housing Foundations ( cohabitation). Likewise, APROP projects have won the second prize for the best R&D&I project in housing and built environment.

International recognition

These are not the only awards that affordable housing projects have received. The ESAL Agreement, between Barcelona City Council and third-sector entities, has also been awarded this year by the Housing Europe International Union of Tenants and Delphis association, which has also recognized the projects of Can Fabra (Leaders of innovation, agents of fair energy transition) and of Casa Bloc (Building strategic alliances, fostering community participation).

The housing projects of the Barcelona City Council, such as the Aprop, have also been finalists in the Fad awards (in 2020), and Can Fabra won it in 2021. The Aprop projects were also recognized last year by the New European Bauhaus, in the category of ‘Modular, adaptable and Mobile living solutions’. La Borda cooperative project has also been recognized on several occasions at European level. Thus, in 2019 it also received the European Responsible Housing Award and the World Habitat Award, the same year.