Comboi a la fresca. Collective architectures 2011

Information

From July 18 to 24, 2011 the IV meeting of the network Arquitecturas Colectivas: Comboi a la Fresca was held in Valencia. With the aim of networking, thinking and activating the city, about 60 collectives from Valencia and other cities participated in this process of reflection, action, recovery and participatory management of habitat.

Public and private spaces in the center and the periphery and in total about twenty sites located in different neighborhoods of Valencia, were the scenarios used to develop the intense program of activities participated by groups and neighborhood associations, which proposed an idea of city from collaboration, networking, self-management, sustainability, recycling and humanism.
The activities were organized in participatory action sessions in the morning and joint reflection sessions in the afternoon. It is intended that the meeting is not the final conclusion of a process, but the beginning of synergies and meetings that will be projected in the future.

The neighborhoods of Patraix, Velluters, El Carmen, Russafa, Natzaret and Cabanyal were the areas of the city where the activities took place, concentrated in lots, party walls, rooftops and premises, in each case provided by neighborhood associations, or by private owners with whom a temporary assignment of unused spaces was negotiated, or institutions that have collaborated to varying degrees, such as the School of Art and Design (EASD), the October Cultural Center, the MUVIM or the French Institute.

The projects developed between groups from inside and outside the city and between these and some neighborhood associations were proposed in three main areas: Workshops (legal workshop, participatory methodologies workshop and urban masoveria workshop), Sensitive Itineraries through different neighborhoods of the city and Creation of Spaces (Solar Corona, Solar Princesa, Collective Rooftops, etc).

The meeting was made possible thanks to the efforts of a large number of people, the securing of material resources, the provision of space and a budget of 3,000 euros.

The energy accumulated during the meeting was channeled into the creation of a series of resources: working groups, shared files in dropbox, the beginning of the elaboration of five legal guides and the continuation of some of the initiated projects. In this sense, it is worth mentioning the project of recovery and reactivation for temporary uses of the site in Corona street, which after the meeting has been temporarily ceded by its owner to the Comboi a la Fresca platform.