La Lleialtat Santsenca was a workers’ consumer cooperative founded in the Sants neighborhood in 1891. After occupying various locations, it built its own headquarters in 1928 at number 31 Olzinelles Street. Since 2006, the building has been publicly owned, and although it is protected and designated as a community facility, it remains vacant and unused. For this reason, a platform of more than sixty neighborhood associations is advocating to recover it as a community space for popular and cooperative culture.
Lacol decided to support and accompany the La Lleialtat Santsenca Platform from the beginning, in December 2009. The team conducted a survey and organized workshops to define the program in a participatory way, and developed an architectural proposal to support the claim to the City Council. On March 3, 2011, the final District Council meeting of the term unanimously approved an Institutional Declaration in favor of recovering the building and creating a Monitoring Committee with neighborhood associations, which met for the first time on May 3.
La Lleialtat Santsenca aims to become a new type of community facility that stands out in the city, both in terms of its programming, its management model, and its spatial use. To this end, various spaces across the city were studied to learn from their strengths and overcome outdated models, such as “entity hotels.” The proposal does not allow private spaces and studies future users to optimize usage throughout the day, identifying groups with complementary schedules who can share spaces. This approach also encourages networking and collaboration between individuals and organizations.