Living in Barcelona's most iconic public housing block: "We've won the lottery"

BarcelonaRubén and Tamara were two of the thousands of Barcelona residents who, on May 15th last year, were awaiting the draw for the largest public housing promotion to date in the city: that of Illa Glòries. He, from the apartment where they lived in El Carmel, and she, from her job at a school. Both were eagerly following the coming and going of numbers. "Suddenly, we saw it clearly. We had won," Rubén still recalls with a smile. "We thought it would be impossible, that our number wouldn't come up. But we won the lottery," he adds.

Rubén and Tamara's skepticism was understandable. Up to 11,243 cohabiting units were vying for one of the 238 subsidized apartments in the four buildings that make up Illa Glòries. The vast majority were left out. The draw was both a testament to the work done by the City Council to respond to the housing crisis, but also to how much remains to be done. Eva and José are also part of the small group of fortunate ones. In their case, the news was given to them by a worker from the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation of Barcelona (IMHAB) over the phone. "I didn't believe it, I thought they were playing a joke on me," recalls Eva. "When they told me it was real, I started crying," she says.

Then it was time to visit the blocks and choose an apartment. Of those available for social or affordable rent – within the Illa Glòries complex there are 88 apartments of this type, 113 under a surface rights regime, 32 for people rehoused from urban expropriation, and five available to the emergency board – both Eva and José, and Rubén and Tamara opted for homes in building A. This is the block designed by the Barcelona studio Cierto Estudio, with its characteristic greenish tone and the walkways that connect all the apartments.

Among the particularities of this block – with a mixed wooden structure that reduces the building's ecological footprint – its spatial organization also stands out, which in the pursuit of maximum flexibility avoids any hierarchy. This leads to a distribution with very similar rooms in a cell-like format, where no space initially dominates the rest. All of this is hinged by the glazed gallery that allows rooms to be connected while facilitating light entry into the apartment, improving ventilation, and regulating the temperature in winter.

"What struck me most was the light and that it was all exterior," explains Rubén as he crosses the gallery connecting his room with his baby's. He admits that the issue of the layout and the particular shape of the rooms – with an imperfect hexagon – "was a headache at first," but assures that over time he has found many advantages. "In the end, we saw that with the furniture we had, we could manage better than we thought," he points out, highlighting the size of the rooms. "I consider it an advantage that the rooms are connected, and I am happy that my child has a large room," he argues.

Eva and José also highlight the light as one of the things they like most about the apartment. "We were amazed at how beautiful it was, the brightness there was," they recall. "We're drooling, really, because we didn't expect an apartment like this," she says. Both admit that at first they were "shocked" by the building's layout, but in the end, they have been able to use all the furniture they brought from the previous apartment. They have chosen to place the main bedroom at the entrance and leave the two rooms in the interior of the block for the living room and a room that is now occupied by one of their cats, but where, "when possible," they want to put a bed for the grandchildren to stay.

Both Rubén and Eva and José also value the walkways that connect the different homes in the block. Eva has even put some chairs and a small table there and often goes out to read there, taking advantage of the views of the TNC. "It's a cozy spot for reading, for talking amongst ourselves and also with the neighbors," she points out. In Rubén's case – who lives one floor below Eva and José – he explains that he goes out there to smoke from time to time so as not to do it inside the apartment with the child, and he celebrates that this system facilitates socialization with others. "Where we lived before, I didn't have so much contact with the neighbors," he explains.

The first child born at Illa Glòries?

Some of the neighbors who will end up living in Illa Glòries still have to arrive – keys are being handed over in phases – but both Eva and José, and Rubén and Tamara, have been there since December last year. In the latter case, their first night in the new apartment was Christmas Eve. "We ordered some pizzas and couldn't do much else," laughs Rubén. Shortly after, Mateo was born, their first child and one of the first children – if not the first – born in Illa Glòries. The new apartment, explains Rubén, was a blessing because the previous one in Carmel – the lifelong neighborhood of both him and his wife – was too small. "In this neighborhood, I think I can give my son a better life," he says.

Eva and José, on the other hand, came from Sant Andreu. They arrived at Illa Glòries a few days earlier, in early December. For them, the apartment in Illa Glòries has been a breath of fresh air. Firstly, because the previous apartment was not adapted to José's mobility problems. "Now we have an adapted bathroom, and the wheelchair passes through the whole house without problems," they explain. And, besides that, because the rent in Sant Andreu kept rising and was suffocating them: "Now, on the other hand, we can afford the apartment and feed ourselves".