The Abaraska project is part of the Puska izotza lecture cycle. Here's the full interview video. The new life book in the community explains this housing model.

ANA ALMANDOZ: In the Basque Country we are some groups that are promoting the model of housing cooperatives in assignment of use. Abaraska is a group created in Donostia.

MAITE LETURIA: There are differences between the local groups, but the main characteristic of this model is property: instead of being the individual property of the building, it is the property of the cooperative and its neighbors and neighbors we are partners of the cooperative. As in any cooperative, each partner will make an initial contribution and pay a monthly fee. This quota shall be used for the refund of the amounts to be used for the construction or rehabilitation of the building, as well as for the maintenance of housing and other costs. This model seeks to avoid speculation about housing, to ensure that housing is not a market product, but a fundamental right.

In the case of Abaraska, we have maintained the model being carried out in Barcelona, that is, we want to build a house on public land, so that it is an example and not an isolated case.

A. ALMANDOZ: In Euskal Herria we have several groups, but no one has yet managed to enter the final phase, that is, to begin to live together. The current picture is quite varied: not all groups expect as we do a public land. They are looking for assignment of use, but in a private area, so they are not negotiating with the administration. So there are many rural groups, while cities are more likely to get out of the public. Some groups are intergenerational, but many are not, targeting older people.

At Abaraska we also work on intergenerational coexistence and we want to take the opportunity to design from the beginning spaces that facilitate another coexistence model, and with the participation of the groups in the design.

M. LETURIA: Architecture is working hard on what the city is, what kind of cities we want: to make urbanism in order to share care, that is, to create spaces that allow care in all areas and between all and all, making care visible, and not having to do it hidden in the corner of the house.

The model of assignment of use has a public vocation through the creation of intermediate spaces in which the public space is confused with the private space (home): it is intended that the sense of community that exists in the building passes to the neighborhood level.

A. ALMANDOZ: At Abaraska we have seen the importance of working well the design with the team that is at the base of the housing. Both processes must go parallel, otherwise the design will respond very badly to the needs of the group. With this model we can control the design of the whole building, for example, in the housing cooperative it is decided among all if one wants to invest in the implementation of energy saving systems, since this long group will obtain these economic benefits.

M. LETURIA: It seems something new, or something specific, but it is not: housing cooperatives in Denmark are over 100 years old and 30% of households are cooperatives. Since the administration of Uruguay, a very strong social model has been promoted, ten years have passed from 100 housing cooperatives to 10,000. They're also in France, Germany, United Kingdom ...