Cellular Domesticities

Lessons from The City in Space and Its Relevance in Barcelona’s Contemporary Debates on Flexible and Collective Housing

Abstract

The City in Space was an experimental housing research project developed by Taller d’Arquitectura between 1968 and 1975. Led by Ricardo Bofill, this multidisciplinary collective explored new ways of living through an approach that combined utopia and realism to address Spain’s affordable housing crisis. As an alternative to the social housing promoted by the military regime from the late 1960s, Taller proposed a design system based on a domestic cellular unit that redefined fundamental aspects of collective housing: minimum housing, spatial flexibility, modularity, industrialization, and strategies to counteract the stigmatization of low-cost housing. Fifty years later, many of these issues remain relevant. Spain’s housing crisis continues unresolved, driving renewed interest in large-scale public housing construction. At the same time, design strategies based on non-hierarchical and interconnected housing cells have re-emerged, while the concept of housing as a framework for communal life has gained traction with the rise of housing cooperatives. This article revisits Taller d’Arquitectura’s research from a contemporary perspective, analyzing its impact and relevance in the current context. Through a critical reading of its design principles and spatial applications, fundamental insights are drawn for rethinking affordable housing within the framework of urban and social transformation.