The Can Ricart complex in Poblenou, Barcelona is one of the last remaining fragments of the district’s industrial past. Local planning struggles have seen social activist movements mobilising cultural, educational, art, and youth organisations to advocate for the conservation and community-oriented development of the historical site, resisting top-down efforts to enforce office space led gentrification.

How can we navigate the necessity for denser urban habitation with a culturally and socially responsible approach towards heritage?

The scheme deconstructs conventional notions of commodified, bedroom-count based dwellings, addressing the grievances and desires of the modern homeowner through proposing a flexible domesticity based on a granular approach to rituals of care. Grand, gestural expressions of the reimagined domestic are enabled through an embedded sharing culture ethos, fostering collective ownership, appreciation and stewardship of the local heritage.