The municipal plot of land at C/ Ulldecona, 26-29, with C/ Micaela Chalmenta, 7-9, will be the site for the first cohousing project in the neighbourhood of La Marina del Prat Vermell. The project is being carried out by the housing cooperative Llar Jove SCCL. Some 35% of the cooperative’s members are families already living in La Marina and will be able to continue living in the neighbourhood, helping to put the brakes on gentrification in this part of the city.

Llar Jove are to build a block of 32 homes, featuring one, two and three-bedroom flats. The building will also have commercial or social premises and communal areas on the ground floor, green spaces on the rooftop and other communal spaces such as a laundry, a health and work area, a kitchen with dining rooms, multi-purpose spaces, terraces and shared cultivation areas.

La Chalmeta is one of the delegated cohousing developments promoted by the City Council during the last term of office and corresponds to the Right to Housing Plan 2016-2025.

A healthy and sustainable building which fosters energy savings

The building will achieve better energy performance through a ventilated façade, combined with an exterior suited to its location and solar protection for the interior yards on the upper floors to control excess sunlight in the summer.

The doors and window frames on the façade will use recycled cotton, with a wooden fibre insulation system for the exterior to regulate humidity and provide comfortable thermal results.

The lighting has also been designed to achieve maximum energy savings through LED technology and automatic lighting in communal areas. At the same time, an estimated 25% saving in water consumption will be achieved through the installation of tap timers, double-flush cisterns and low water-level systems.

More cohousing projects in the city

Llar Jove are the third cooperative to start building a cohousing block in this term of office. The first was La Balma, which started work last summer at C/ Espronceda, 131, in Poblenou. The second project was by La Xarxaire, which laid the first stone last Monday for the block at Pg. Joan de Borbó Comte de Barcelona, 11, in the Barceloneta neighbourhood.

During the previous term of office, two cohousing projects were completed: La Borda, at C/ Constitutció, 83, in the Bordeta neighbourhood, where sixty people live, and the building at C/ Princesa, 49, in the neighbourhood of Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera, where ten people live.