The convent model as a residential asset: towards new forms of community and participatory life

Abstract

Abstract he architectural model of the cloistered convent is an example of architecture with a great capacity for hybridization of use. At present, the communities that inhabit them are being diminished by a reduction in the income of people and an enormous difficulty in meeting the costs of their maintenance and rehabilitation. Consequently, many convents present a state close to ruin, which forces the communities to abandon the buildings to group themselves in others of the same order. At the same time, society is suffering from job insecurity problems and access to housing, which makes it difficult to emancipate autonomously or independently. Phenomenon that is being aggravated by the tourist pressure of the historic centers, causing the expulsion of residents to peripheral neighborhoods. The objective of this article is to open a study and debate on the possibilities that these buildings have to be rehabilitated through a collaborative housing project, allowing the insertion of new communities that allow them to inhabit, maintain and even supply themselves from the complex itself, facing problems of housing and touristification conserving in the historical centers the residential use in relation to a patrimonial element. From Ora et labora to Vivere et participes.