CRISTINA GAMBOA

Cristina Gamboa  is a chartered architect and teacher. She studied at ETSAB, and University of Stuttgart. Cristina is co-founder of Lacol, where she has focused on researching participative approaches to design and developing cooperative housing and housing policies, tested in on-going projects. She currently teaches at AA (MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design - Projective Cities), and  ETSAB (DPA PIII_IV Contemporary Collective Housing, Associate Professor).   

Lacol  is a cooperative of 14 architects established in 2014 in Barcelona. They work from architecture towards social transformation, using architecture as a tool to intervene critically in the local environments. The activity is based on a horizontal system of labor, acting alongside society with the motivation and challenge to achieve a transition towards sustainability in the broadest way possible: political, social, economic and environmental. Lacol’s practice embrace Architecture, Urbanism, Housing policies and Participatory processes, blurring the limits of the different disciplines to define a cross-sectional and participative approach.  Their collective work had been recognized and exhibited locally and internationally, including the 2018 City of Barcelona Architecture Award and recently shortlisted for the next 2020 Venice Biennale of Architecture ‘How will we live together?’, among others