How Will We Live Together? A Comparative Analysis of Housing Cooperatives in Zurich and Barcelona

This article provides a comparative analysis of two models of not-for-profit housing cooperatives with shared ownership and limited equity in Zurich and Barcelona as non-speculative and participatory processes that contribute to the accessibility and adequacy of an architectural project, which arose from a bottom-up debate on alternative housing models. The cases cited are characterised by high architectural quality and typological innovation and follow high energy standards and environmental sustainability criteria. The investigation consists of a theoretical study according to critically selected bibliographic sources and the analysis of the case studies with an action-research method. The aim of the research is to investigate the nature of the model, measure its effectiveness and hypothesise its applicability in other similar contexts

THE ARCHITECTURE OF COMMUNITY. THE CASE OF BARCELONA COHOUSING UNDER GRANT-OF-USE

Short description of a PhD research about cohousing phenomenon in Southern Europe, focusing on the Barcelona case stud

Countless Cities - Biennial of the Cities of the World

CoabitaTO. Mostra sul cohousing per Countless Cities 2021 - Biennale delle città del Mondo presso FARM CULTURAL PARK, Favara (AG), Itali

COMMONING DOMESTIC SPACE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: THE CASE OF COHOUSING

Cohousing was born in the 1970s as a result of the post-modern cultural shift (Habraken, 1972; Turner, 1976; Harvey, 1989). Even if its origins can be traced back to the secular history of utopian communities and communitarian movements (Jarvis, 2011; Vestbro and Horelli, 2012), its current form originated in Denmark, related to the realisation of the communities Skraplanet and Sættedammen in 1972 (McCamant and Durrett, 1988). It spread in Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands first, then in English-speaking countries in the 1990s, and only from the 2000s in Southern Europe (Fromm, 1991; Gresleri, 2015; Pernilla et al., 2020). The recent expansion in Mediterranean Europe has not been studied yet: systematic research with listing and gathering data on cohousing projects is missing. What does it mean to reproduce the cohousing model in the Mediterranean context? What characteristics, procedural and typological, it has? Which contemporary issues could this housing model address? The research focuses on analysing historical and contemporary forms of shared and community living in the Mediterranean area as a vehicle for translating the cohousing models that characterise Northern Europe (Lacol, 2018). The investigation will be carried out through historical, qualitative, and comparative analysis and the re-drawing of selected case studies, with a particular emphasis on the city of Barcelona as an emblematic case of friction between community, traditional living models and internationality, housing exclusion and innovative policies

Uno stato dell'arte in Italia

La scarsità di alloggi a prezzi accessibili è un problema serio e in costante crescita in tutta Europa. Un problema sia per le fasce più fragili della popolazione, sia per il ceto medio via via espulso dalle città a causa di processi speculativi che incoraggiano l’accumulazione e favoriscono i grandi gruppi della finanza. Se gli Stati solo ora pongono al centro il tema dell’abitare nei processi di city-making e rigenerazione urbana, per far fronte a questo problema già dagli anni Novanta sono nate pratiche community-led capaci di concretizzare valori quali la sussidiarietà, la democrazia e la cooperazione in risposta ai nuovi bisogni dei cittadini. L’obiettivo delle nuove comunità è quello di trasformare gli immobili da merce in bene comune, per rilanciare così un mercato virtuoso in cui la maglia dei diritti di cittadinanza si allarga e in cui i rapporti umani si fanno più vivaci. In questo modo il mercato immobiliare è valorizzato non per il profitto che genera, ma per essere l’epicentro di una città più inclusiva, accessibile e accogliente. Il volume – dopo aver presentato il fenomeno community-led housing e approfondito le dinamiche che hanno portato all’odierna situazione di criticità – presenta un Atlante di progetti europei e internazionali di “abitare collaborativo”, analizzando tre città particolarmente attive e interessanti – Barcellona, Zurigo e Bruxelles – e la situazione italiana

In Search of Fair and Collaborative Housing Models for the Italian Context

Collaborative housing is an emerging, but still marginal phenomenon, especially in the Global South, that concerns also the Italian territory, where the first co-housing project initiatives emerged during the first decade of 2000s. They represent an alternative housing response derived by pressing economic issues exacerbated by the commodification of the building stocks process and its peak with the 2008’s subprime mortgage crisis (Rolnik, 2019), but also by the quest for a different lifestyle and the need for community and mutual care, no more fulfilled by the shrinked welfare state provision or traditional family networks. The present research offers a frame on the Italian situation concerning alternative housing models, such as collaborative, community-led, co-housing,filling a gap of knowledge of the phenomenon in this specific geographical context. The data were obtained from direct sources, such as interviews to inhabitants, field trips as well as from bibliographical sources . At date, Italy, in spite of its long tradition of housing cooperatives, workers' mutual support, deregulated since the 1980s, counts a total of 28 new initiatives. These are still the result of the civic will of small groups of citizens who encounter many difficulties during the production process with a high rate of failure, worsened by the lack of specific legislation or community networks. However, some public administrations such as Milan, Bologna, Trento and Turin started to produce tools and projects to support collaborative housing models. The aim of this study is to provide a picture of the state of the art of housing alternatives in Italy, as it is a growing trend , and to outline the future prospects in this context

Un atlante di casi europei

La scarsità di alloggi a prezzi accessibili è un problema serio e in costante crescita in tutta Europa. Un problema sia per le fasce più fragili della popolazione, sia per il ceto medio via via espulso dalle città a causa di processi speculativi che incoraggiano l’accumulazione e favoriscono i grandi gruppi della finanza. Se gli Stati solo ora pongono al centro il tema dell’abitare nei processi di city-making e rigenerazione urbana, per far fronte a questo problema già dagli anni Novanta sono nate pratiche community-led capaci di concretizzare valori quali la sussidiarietà, la democrazia e la cooperazione in risposta ai nuovi bisogni dei cittadini. L’obiettivo delle nuove comunità è quello di trasformare gli immobili da merce in bene comune, per rilanciare così un mercato virtuoso in cui la maglia dei diritti di cittadinanza si allarga e in cui i rapporti umani si fanno più vivaci. In questo modo il mercato immobiliare è valorizzato non per il profitto che genera, ma per essere l’epicentro di una città più inclusiva, accessibile e accogliente. Il volume – dopo aver presentato il fenomeno community-led housing e approfondito le dinamiche che hanno portato all’odierna situazione di criticità – presenta un Atlante di progetti europei e internazionali di “abitare collaborativo”, analizzando tre città particolarmente attive e interessanti – Barcellona, Zurigo e Bruxelles – e la situazione italiana

Recent Advances in Bacterial Degradation of Hydrocarbons

Hydrocarbons occur in fossil fuels such as crude oil and consist mainly of hydrogen and carbon. Although they are natural chemicals, crude oil refining results in commercial products with new physico-chemical properties, which can increase their complexity and toxicity, and hamper their degradation. The presence of biodiverse natural microbial communities is a prerequisite for an effective homeostatic response to the various hydrocarbons, that contaminate ecosystems. However, their removal depends on the compartment contaminated (water, sediment, soil), their molecular weight, and their toxicity not hampering microbial activity. This paper reports different bacterial species involved in the biodegradation of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbon contamination is generally due to the co-presence of a mixture of these chemicals, and their removal from the environment cannot rely on only a single species but generally requires bacterial consortia. Versatile bacterial metabolism relies on specific genes encoding the key enzymes involved in the peripheral metabolic and central metabolic pathways for degrading aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Although microbial metabolism can have the potential for natural attenuation of these contaminants, hydrocarbon bioremediation, through biostimulation (e.g., use of surfactants, plants, earthworms, and nanoparticles) and bioaugmentation, can be a valid tool for removing them from actually contaminated soil, freshwater, groundwater, and seawater

Degradation of a fluoroquinolone antibiotic in an urbanized stretch of the River Tiber

The widespread detection of antibiotics in terrestrial and aquatic systems has engendered significant scientific and regulatory concern. Overall, knowledge concerning the ecotoxicology and sub-lethal effects in water is scarce, but some experimental studies show that antibiotics can induce pathogen resistance and they can also have detrimental effects on natural microbial communities and their key functions. The main aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of the biodegradation and photodegradation processes of the fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin (CIP) in the River Tiber waters, in a stretch highly impacted from human pressure. Two set of microcosms consisting of river water containing the natural microbial community and treated with 500 μg/L of CIP in absence or presence of UV-light were performed. Moreover, some microcosms were filled with river water previously sterilized and then treated with the antibiotic. The combined experimental set made it possible to evaluate if the antibiotic CIP could be photodegraded and/or biodegraded. CIP residual concentrations were measured over time by using HPLC coupled to fluorescence detection (FLD) and the effects of the antibiotic on the natural microbial community were assessed in terms of live cell abundance. The key role of light in CIP disappearance was confirmed, but also its biodegradation in natural river water was demonstrated. In fact, differently from other experiments we found a higher degradation rate (DT50= 10.4 d), in presence of both light and the natural river bacterial populations than in the same sterilized river water (DT50= 18.4 d). Moreover, even in the dark, a partial CIP biodegradation was also observed (DT50= 177 d). The overall results were supported by the increase in live cell numbers with the decrease of CIP concentrations both in the dark and light condition

Impact of bacterial motility on biosorption and cometabolism of pyrene in a porous medium

8 páginas.- 6 figuras.- 40 referenciasThe risks of pollution by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) may increase in bioremediated soils as a result of the formation of toxic byproducts and the mobilization of pollutants associated to suspended colloids. In this study, we used the motile and chemotactic bacterium Pseudomonas putida G7 as an experimental model for examining the potential role of bacterial motility in the cometabolism and biosorption of pyrene in a porous medium. For this purpose, we conducted batch and column transport experiments with 14C-labelled pyrene loaded on silicone O-rings, which acted as a passive dosing system. In the batch experiments, we observed concentrations of the 14C-pyrene equivalents well above the equilibrium concentration observed in abiotic controls. This mobilization was attributed to biosorption and cometabolism processes occurring in parallel. HPLC quantification revealed pyrene concentrations well below the 14C-based quantifications by liquid scintillation, indicating pyrene transformation into water-soluble polar metabolites. The results from transport experiments in sand columns revealed that cometabolic-active, motile cells were capable of accessing a distant source of sorbed pyrene. Using the same experimental system, we also determined that salicylate-mobilized cells, inhibited for pyrene cometabolism, but mobilized due to their tactic behavior, were able to sorb the compound and mobilize it by biosorption. Our results indicate that motile bacteria active in bioremediation may contribute, through cometabolism and biosorption, to the risk associated to pollutant mobilization in soils. This research could be the starting point for the development of more efficient, low-risk bioremediation strategies of poorly bioavailable contaminants in soils. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.We thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (CGL2016-77497-R), the Andalusian Government (RNM 2337), and the European Commission (LIFE15 ENV/IT/000396). Joaquim Vila is a Serra Húnter Fellow (Generalitat de Catalunya).Peer reviewe